


Black Eyes Take Warning

by SonneillonV



Category: Supernatural, Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-12-11
Updated: 2013-01-21
Packaged: 2017-11-20 20:33:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 6
Words: 27,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/589369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SonneillonV/pseuds/SonneillonV
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gerard Argent may be dead, but he had one last nasty surprise in store for the Beacon Hills pack; a demonic ally now loose to wreak havoc on the town.  Sam and Dean Winchester come to Beacon Hills chasing news of dead hunters and signs of an active werewolf pack, only to find that the situation in Beacon Hills is much more complicated... and dangerous... than they thought.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Gerard Argent stumbled over an errant tree root and hit the ground, breaking his fall with shaking hands.  At his age he was lucky he didn’t break a wrist, or his pelvis – that would be par for the course today, as many things as had already gone wrong.  He groaned as he pulled his foot free and slumped to the earth.  The black ichor leaking from his nose left a bitter taste on his lips.  It spilled from his ears too, and turned his fingernails dark, like it couldn’t evacuate his body fast enough.  All because of that damnable brat.  

Plan A had failed, plan B had failed, and now plan C, the desperation plan, had also blown up in his face.  He was left without options – he was dying  _right now_.  In the wake of this disaster his family would have none of him, so he had only one name left to call on.

With arthritic fingers he scratched it into the dirt, painstakingly digging broken nails into the leaf litter.  He hacked up bile as he traced the symbols, and though he had so little time left, he did not rush;  this sort of thing had to be right the first time.  He had only one chance and no room for error.  With trembling care, he etched the sigil to call the demon at the center of the circle, and then was overtaken by a fit of coughing that turned to vomit.

“There you are.”

That frosty voice could belong to only one person, and Gerard didn’t bother turning around.  “You’re too late,” he rasped.  “If it’s revenge you came for, I’m afraid you’ll be… disappointed.”  He had only to speak the words, and he began muttering them under his breath as he felt the other draw near.  Grass crunched just behind him, and he gave a slightly-mad laugh.  “Are you here to finish me off?  What’s to finish?  I’m dead already.”  He coughed again, spat out more black liquid, and tried to mumble the last words.

“Under the circumstances,” his killer said matter-of-factly, “you’ll forgive me for making sure.”

Then his hand plunged under Gerard’s rib-cage, steel fingers grasping, closing around his life-beat and ripping the convulsing muscle from his body.  Gerard toppled forward over the symbol he had carved as blood spilled from the hole in his back, soaking the ground around him.  His lips moved, but no sound came out… his vision grayed.  His killer disappeared into the forest as silently as he’d come and as Gerard sank into death he tried to cling to his fury, to his rage at being cheated, to the betrayal of his family, but those feelings were not hot enough or venomous enough to chase away the cold.  He died a failure, or so he thought.

By the time a malformed, black, twisted thing hauled itself out of the blood-soaked sigil and bolted screaming into the night, Gerard had been dead for four minutes.


	2. Chapter 2

Sam abruptly closed his laptop when Dean walked in carrying breakfast bags from the nearest fast food joint.  His reaction was so immediate, and so guilty, that Dean paused to eye him, mouth quirking up as he sauntered over and dropped a bag on top of the computer.  “Getting’ your porn on, Sammy?” he teased, and Sam glowered at him, digging into the bag and wolfing down his breakfast sandwich while Dean flopped on the nearby bed.  “Breakfast of champions,” he commented as he pulled out the sandwich – southern-style biscuits  cheese, egg, bacon, bacon, and more bacon, and a hint of maple syrup.  Sam raised an eyebrow.  

“Do you have any idea how much cholesterol is in that?” he asked dryly, but Dean just grinned.

“Yes,” he said happily.  “Yes I do.”  He took a huge bite, and Sam rolled his eyes, re-opening his computer and logging onto something that, as far as Dean could tell, was disappointingly uninteresting.  “Aw, come on,” he said through his sandwich.  “You don’t have to stop ‘cause of me.  Busty Asian beauties dot com, man.  You can use my log-in, I’ve got a subscription.”

Sam glared.  “Yeah, well, unlike some people, I like to start my mornings doing something productive.”

“I’m productive!” Dean protested.  “I brought breakfast.  And,” he added, balling up the paper bag and chucking it at Sam’s head, “I think I found us something.”

With a hunter’s unthinking reflexes Sam swatted the paper ball away and turned in his chair to eye Dean.  “You found us something.  At 'Happy Chicken'?”

Dean unfolded a newspaper he’d apparently been keeping hidden under his arm until then and leafed through it with syrupy fingers until he found the right page, then held it up.  It was too far away for Sam to see, so he just stared blankly at Dean.  “You ever hear the name ‘Argent’?”

Sam frowned.  “It’s Latin for ‘silver’.  Sounds familiar.”

“Yeah, well, it should.  The Argents are shifter-hunters,” Dean told him.  “A whole family of them, specialists.  Werewolves mostly, but they’ve taken out skinwalkers, kanimas, run-of-the-mill shapeshifters, you name it… if it gets jiggy with genetics they gank it.  Dad never had nothin’ but good to say about ‘em, apparently they’ve got kind of a rep.”

“But I’m guessing they couldn’t stay out of the papers?” Sam ascertained, and Dean shook the paper at him before pulling it back in to read.

“Gerard Argent, seventy-two, found dead, heart  _ripped_  from his body,” he summarized, giving Sam a chance to look intrigued before moving on to read the actual paragraph.  “This latest in a series of tragedies has decimated the Argent family, beginning with the murder of twenty-eight year old Kate Argent, the late Gerard’s daughter, followed by the suicide of Gerard’s daughter-in-law Victoria.  Before her death Kate Argent was a police suspect in an incident which took place in 2009, in which a family home in Beacon Hills was burnt to the ground with six family members trapped inside.  Initially ruled to be an accident, police now suspect Arson, and a source in the Sheriff’s department claims evidence exists to link Kate to at least three other, unrelated murders.”  He gave the paper a snap and refolded it, waggling his eyebrows at Sam as if to say,  _See?  What did I tell you, I’m totally useful._

Sam frowned thoughtfully.  “So, what?” he mused.  “The Argents take out a bunch of shifters, Kate gets tagged and ends up taking the fall?”

“Sounds like it to me,” Dean agreed, but Sam wasn’t ready to let it go.

“So why are they still in town?  Why haven’t they moved on?  Usually that much attention isn’t something people like us stick around for.”

“Could be they didn’t get them all,” Dean suggested.  “This is today’s tabloid, so I figure Grandpa died maybe a couple days ago?  Week at the most?  Sounds like this war’s still going on and they’ve lost a few players.”

“Sounds like family business,” Sam pointed out, and nodded at the paper.  “Who sold the story?”

“Well, the Tattler’s sources are of course confidential, but reading between the lines, seems like some kids found the body,” Dean reasoned.  “Must’ve figured they could make a buck.  So whaddaya say?  Feel like a trip to sunny California?”

Sam took the measure of Dean’s grin and heaved a sigh.  “Well, it’s not like we’re doing anything around here.”

“Hey, that’s the spirit!” Dean cheered.  “California here we come!”

Sam, who already had his computer working, said, “You know Beacon Hills is not on the ocean, right?”

Dean sobered a little, but that minor factoid was not enough to shatter his good mood.

X-X-X

Beacon Hills had a train station, and their hotel was literally on the wrong side of the tracks.  That certainly was no oddity for them, but even Dean seemed a little thrown by the state of the carpet when they walked in.  Sam set up at the rickety, off-balance table shoved under the window and quickly discovered there was about a year’s worth of old chewing gum stuck to the bottom of it.

The Argents, in contrast, owned a house.  A BIG house.  The kind of nice, big house that required a credit score and a mortgage.  It was classy enough to make them both feel shabby by comparison as they trudged up the driveway, on alert for signs of a disturbance.  There were none.

“Looks like the Argents are living in style,” Dean commented, thumbs hooked in his pockets.  “How do a bunch of Hunters afford something like this?”

“Veneer of respectability, maybe?” Sam proposed, and Dean laughed.  It was Sam who rang the doorbell, because Dean was still gawking, and thus it was Sam who found himself staring down at a slender, beautiful, wide-eyed girl with dark curls tumbling down her back and the most amazing bone structure he’d seen in a while.  She was much too young, of course, for either of them, but he was so surprised he had to grope for a moment to regain his usual smoothness.  “I… Hi,” he fumbled.  “I’m Sam, and this is Dean.”  Her huge eyes flicked to his brother, who gave her his trademark charming smile and nod.  “We’re… we’re family friends.  We heard about Gerard… he’s your grandfather?  We were hoping we could speak to your dad, Chris, is he at home?”

She looked wary, and Dean wondered how much she knew.  His eyes flicked downward, and he noticed she was keeping one hand behind the door… stepping closer, he peeked past Sam’s shoulder.  “This is just a great house you have,” he said conversationally.  “We were admiring it on the way up.”  When he began to push inside, she moved, but he was ready, and almost before she could fully draw he had the crossbow out of her hands and was pulling the bolt from the track.  “Whoo,” he exhaled, “these things are dangerous.  Don’t want to poke anyone’s eye out!  You don’t mind if I hold onto this for a second, do you sweetheart?” he asked with a dangerous glint to his smile, and the girl began to backtrack, but Sam held his hands up placatingly.

“Listen, we don’t want to hurt you,” he assured her.  “We’re Hunters.  We heard what happened to your grandpa and we’re here to help.”

Her eyes fixed on him, steely and bitter.  “You have no idea what happened to my grandfather,” she said coldly.  She looked ready to fight, and Sam looked around, desperate to find an adult somewhere.

“Well, that’s actually why we’re here,” he said.  “Is anyone else home?”

She tossed her head.  “You’re going to give me back my crossbow and you’re going to get out of Beacon Hills,” she told them, her voice shockingly steely for a high schooler.  As if she fully expected them to drop everything and obey her.  “The  _last_  thing we need here is more Hunters.”

“Really?”  Dean inclined his head.  “Cause you know, from what we heard, you all just lost a few people.  I’m not trying to rub it in, I’m just saying maybe you could stand to replenish your forces.  I mean, it’s not over, is it?  Did you catch the werewolf that killed your grandfather?”

She folded her arms and shifted her weight.  “You know, taking away my crossbow doesn’t make me helpless,” she said, and Sam shifted too, mirroring her.

“Really?” he asked with resignation.  “You wanna do this?  You’re as long as my arm and I’ll bet you weigh the same.”

From behind them, a new voice said, “Is there a problem here, Allison?”

They turned, hoping for a voice of reason.  Instead they saw another teenager, Allison’s age, a boy whose thick black hair and earnest brown eyes were totally at odds with the hard set of his jaw.  He had his arms folded and even though he wasn’t even full grown, he carried an intimidating intensity that put both Hunters on edge.

Allison just seemed mildly annoyed.  “Scott,” she chided, “what are you doing here?  If Dad sees you…!”

“I think your dad has better things to worry about,” the new kid said, slowly climbing the steps until he was on the same level as Sam and Dean.  He was just a half-pint, but Dean found himself frowning, looking into the kids eyes, because he was suddenly taken by the conviction that this kid could, and would, rip him apart if he didn’t watch his step.   _Over the girl_ , he noted, glancing back at her, noting the worry on her face.   _Interesting_.

“Chris said it would be okay if we stopped by,” Sam was saying.  “We don’t want to intrude.  We just want to pay our respects and… be there if he needs us.  I’m pretty sure I’ve got his text message here,” he reasoned, fumbling with his phone, holding it up.

Allison interrupted him.  “Look, he’ll be here tomorrow if you come by then, but until he says it’s okay, I am not letting you in and I think you’d better leave.”  She held out her hand for her crossbow.  Sam, still fumbling with the phone, gave Dean a minuscule nod, and Dean handed it back with a grin and a chuckle.

“So you’ve got kind of a Legolas thing going on there?” he ventured, and then the new kid, Scott, stepped around him so he and Allison were standing shoulder to shoulder.

“She told you to leave,” he reminded the Hunters with deadly calm, and Sam backed off first.

“Fine, great.  We’re leaving.  We’ll give Chris a call tomorrow, okay?  No hard feelings.”  He gave Allison puppy-dog eyes, but Allison seemed completely unmoved, probably because Scott was giving her much more soulful puppy-dog eyes than Sam had ever, in his life, been able to manage.

“We’ll see,” was all Allison said before shutting the door in their faces.

For a moment they stood there in silence, and then Dean turned back to the car.  “Well.  That went well.”

“Somebody murdered her aunt, her mom, and her grandfather,” Sam pointed out, fidgeting with his phone.  “I’d be paranoid too.”

“So, what do you think?  Stake it out for a while or head back to research central?  I could go for a slice,” Dean remarked as he slid into the driver’s seat.  “Think anywhere has good pie around here?”

“Stake out,” Sam answered without hesitation, and Dean arched a brow.

“Why, you think something’s gonna happen s’worth noting?”

Sam, engrossed in his phone, mumbled, "Maybe."  Dean gave him a long, expectant look, resting his elbow on the steering wheel.  Then, finally, Sam held up the phone.  

Dean blinked, then leaned in closer.  Sam, pretending to hunt for a text, had surreptitiously taken a picture of 'Scott'.  A wise precaution, as a shapeshifter's eyes would show light flare.  But that was a glimmer, a gleam, easy to miss... this was something entirely different.  Scott's eyes flared so severely the effect whited out half his face.  "Dude," Dean murmured, reaching out to poke the screen.  "What IS that?"

"Something," Sam replied, articulate as always, taking the phone back so he could fiddle with it.  "I guess it could be the phone, but I mean... how likely is that?"

Dean's mouth thinned and he glanced out the window to think.  Then his hand snapped out and gripped Sam's jacket.  "Dude," he hissed, yanking Sam toward his side of the car, ignoring his offended yelp.  "DUDE."  He pointed, and Sam, awkwardly half-spilled across his lap, looked up out the window.

A dark shadow crept across the roof of the Argent house, away from an open second-story window in which Allison was silhouetted, leaning out, watching it move away.  As they watched, it leaped to the peak of the roof, then leaped off, vanishing in a blur of blatantly inhuman motion.

"Was that Scott?" Sam exhaled, and Dean shuddered, relaxing into his seat.

"Seems like a good bet."

Upstairs, Allison was pulling the window closed and drawing the curtains.

"So... the granddaughter of Gerard Argent, who was murdered by werewolves, is...."

"... Inviting guys who do  _that_  to a camera up to her room.  I think things just got a lot more complicated," Dean mused, and Sam snorted.

"Chyeah.  No wonder she didn't want to let us in.  You think her dad knows about this?"  Sam's face was drawn in concern, and Dean shrugged and put the Impala into gear.

"I know one way to find out," he said as they pulled away from the curb and retreated into the darkness.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some of you are going to leave me messages saying "Demons don't work this way!"  
> To you, I put this question: Why do you assume this one is telling the truth?

“You can’t be here, Scott,” Allison fretted as she climbed the stairs with the werewolf trailing at her heels.  “My dad could get home any minute and I don’t even know if I’m ready for you to be….”  She sucked in a hitched breath and Scott couldn’t help himself from reaching out to comfort her.

“I’ll go,” he swore, brushing his hands over her shoulders, thrilled that she allowed it.  “Right now, I swear.  I just worry about you.”  She looked down at the floor and he brushed her hair back from her face.  “Allison.  Who were those guys?  Were they Hunters?”

She sighed and folded her arms, retreating.  “They must have been.  I don’t know them, but they said they knew my dad.”

Scott blinked.  “What… what, do you think he called them in?”

“I don’t know!”  Frustrated, Allison gestured aimlessly.  “I don’t know what my dad is doing.  Everyone who was supposed to be leading my family is dead now: Gerard, and then my mom, and I guess it would have gone to Kate, but….”  Her throat closed convulsively and Scott wished he could hug her, but she really didn’t look like she wanted that kind of comfort from him right now.

“Well, so, you’re on your own now,” Scott reasoned.  “Maybe the other Hunters don’t like that?  Maybe they sent somebody to… pick up where Gerard left off?”  That was a worrisome idea, and Allison’s dark eyes were anxious.

“Maybe,” she allowed.  “Scott, let me talk to him, okay?  And, and you stay clear.”  She pressed her knuckles against her mouth.  “I can’t right now, I’m not….”

“Allison,” he breathed, fairly straining with the need to wrap her in his arms.  “Allison, it’s okay.  All I care about is that you’re safe.  And now you are, so I’ll go.  I’m not trying to hurt you,” he added helplessly as Allison led them into her bedroom and leaned over to open the window.

Her voice was thick when she murmured, “I know.  I know you’d never hurt me, Scott.”  For a long moment, they just hovered there, Allison refusing to meet his eyes, chewing on her sweater sleeve.  Then finally she made an almost convulsive gesture toward the window.  “Go.  You should probably… warn people.”

Scott’s eyes went distant and hard.  “Yeah,” he agreed, and threw a leg over the sill.  “Derek will want to know there’s more hunters in town.  Please call me and let me know what your dad says, all right?  Or, or if you can’t call me, call Stiles.”

She nodded hastily.  “I will.”

Scott leaped across her roof and was gone, and Allison pulled the window shut, then slumped into her desk chair.  Those wounds were still fresh, the fear, the upheaval… so much had happened lately it was as if her ability to process it had gotten gunk in the works.  Things were grinding, turning, but going nowhere.  For a while she had shut it off completely and there had been icy clarity of purpose, but it turned out that kind of clarity wasn’t actually a good thing – only a fanatic lived with such conviction that they were in the right, and that anyone who opposed them was expendable.  That wasn’t her.  She couldn’t live like that.

Outside, an old engine gunned and then faded away into the night, and Allison stared at her wall, waiting for her father to get home.

X-X-X

There was only one entrance to Derek’s lair, the old fire door that squeaked like a banshee when opened.  So when Stiles Stilinski appeared in Derek’s derelict subway car, without warning, without a sound, Derek felt a certain amount of startlement on his part was only natural.  Still, he didn’t like being forced to jump out of his skin, so he snarled at him, stalking toward him, gripping the support poles in crushing hands.  “Stiles,” he growled, a warning to the teenager who stood there with his hands in the pockets of his hoodie, looking over the battered car.

“This is a… nice place you’ve got here,” he hedged, reaching over to pick at a seat-pad that was leaking stuffing.  “No, it’s good, it’s… homey.”  He offered Derek a guilty smile, and Derek’s anger bled out of him, turning to mild irritation as his shoulders dropped.

“What are you doing here?” he asked, almost dreading the answer, hoping it had something to do with Scott because that was the only excusable reason for Stiles lingering around his pseudo-bedroom at two in the morning.

“Um… well, I….”  Stiles rubbed the back of his neck and exhaled sharply.  “I wanted to talk to you, I guess.  Just the two of us, in private.  Hopefully not the ‘nobody will hear you scream’ kind of private,” he amended with a nervous laugh, and Derek rolled his eyes.

“About?”

Stiles bit his lower lip and fidgeted a little as Derek tried to shrug off the agitation that refused to subside.  Yes, Stiles had barged into his territory uninvited, but Stiles belonged to Scott, and Scott was basically like his recalcitrant, infuriating little brother, so he didn’t have to get ruffled about Stiles.  There was no reason for his instincts to be blaring alarms, no reason for his claws and teeth to be itching to come out, no need for the stubborn crimson glow to his eyes that he could tell was freaking Stiles out.  His nose twitched, and he frowned.

“Did you walk through a… bonfire before coming here?” he asked, and Stiles’ eyes widened.  “A pig roast?  You smell off.”

“I… really?”  Stiles shuffled guiltily while trying to look innocent, something he had probably never been good at in his life.  “Fire?  Pfft.  Why… why would I smell like that?”  One hand flopped uselessly and Derek decided he didn’t want to know what Stiles had been up to because the answer would probably just scar him for life, or use up the last shred of patience he had for Stiles’ shenanigans.  “Like fire, and blood,” Stiles was rambling on, half in his own little world.  “And burning metal.  I have definitely NOT been near those things.  Tonight,” he added with a nervous little bounce.

“Did you need something?”  Derek interrupted, edging closer, though the closer he got the more alarms went off in his head.  That smell… it reminded him of something, something that made his stomach churn in rebellion.  And it didn’t smell like Stiles, though Stiles’ own scent was clinging to his clothing, overwhelmed by the stench of… of a charnal house.  Of pain.  Of  _suffering_.

Derek clenched his fists and realized his palms were clammy with cold sweat.  His heart slammed into his rib-cage, and just for a second, he could almost swear he was back in that dark room with electrodes fastened to his body and Kate’s foul touch sliming across his skin as she turned the voltage higher and higher.  He came back to himself with a mighty effort – the flashback had been too real, just for an instant – and found himself staring aghast into Stiles’ eyes.

It wasn’t Stiles looking back at him.

The big brown eyes were the same, guileless and near-gold, but for an Alpha the eyes were a window to the soul beneath.  Making eye contact was aggression, holding it was a challenge, and his pups quailed under his gaze, rightly so, while Scott fought against all the instincts that screamed at him to submit.  Stiles was human, so he didn’t understand.  He would hold Derek’s eyes for prolonged periods until Derek had to use some other way to cow him.  But he could always see the fear behind Stiles’ eyes, the instinct to fold up and submit, because an Alpha was an apex predator and it showed in their gaze.

He could tell another apex predator when he saw one.

Almost without thinking, he slammed his hand into Stile’s throat and pinned him against the side of the car.  “What are you?” he snarled, letting the words spill from his mouth even though they made no sense.  “If you hurt Stiles….”  Well, that was a surprise.  Threatening people on Stiles’ behalf wasn’t something he did often, but he was letting his instincts run away with him.  He pulled Sti… NOT!Stiles away from the wall and started to slam him into it again, but then not!Stiles waved a hand and it was  _Derek_  whose feet left the ground, Derek who crashed painfully into the opposite wall, shattering plexiglass and tumbling to the floor in a pile of bruised bones and gleaming shards, Derek who lay stunned, trying to get his feet under him, while Stiles… not!Stiles… straightened his hoodie and rolled his neck, working out the kinks from Derek’s rough handling.

                                                                                

“NPH,” he groaned, wrinkling his nose cutely, catching his lower lip between his teeth.  “That felt  _good_.  Probably not to you,” he allowed, stepping forward, crunching shards of glass under his shoes.  “But I mean, you’ve been knocking me around since we met, so I figure it’s about time I got a turn.  Not so much fun on the other side, is it?” he asked Derek with mock sympathy as Derek staggered to his feet.  Half-shifted, he eyed not!Stiles carefully, flexing clawed fingers.  Stiles noticed and shook his head slightly, shoulders rolling in an idle shrug.  “I wouldn’t,” he told Derek, head bobbing thoughtfully.  “I mean… you probably would.  You don’t have to take my advice.  It’s not like that’s ever been a thing that you, y’know, do.  Why is that anyway?” he demanded, his tone dramatically offended.  “I give great advice.  My advice is why Scott’s not cut in half or riddled with arrows.  You know, you act like I’m an idiot, Derek,” he said accusingly.  “What, is it because I’m younger than you?  Is it because I’m human?”

Derek snarled.  “You’re  _not_  human.”

Stiles looked briefly taken-aback, then dissolved into a guilty laugh.  “Oh.  Well,” he allowed.  “Okay, maybe not right  _now_.  But before this, I was totally human, one-hundred percent.  Pale skin, fragile bones, all that jazz.  Is it because of your family?” he asked, taking slow steps closer to Derek, and though he didn’t really understand why, Derek was  _backing off_.  “Because of what Kate did?  She really screwed you, didn’t she?” he said pointedly.  “She’s the reason you’re, like, totally incapable of giving anybody a chance.”

“ _Don’t,_ ” Derek growled, “talk to me about Kate.”

“Why not?”  Stiles’ hands flopped.  “She worked you over.  She wiggled her tight, perky little butt into your heart and into your head.  She used you, Derek!” he declared, “Used you to murder your family.  You’ve been carrying that around with you,” he reasoned persistently, “and you haven’t told anybody.  All that guilt, all that rage… what were you, sixteen?  Seventeen?  It wasn’t your fault,” he enunciated, picking out the words and throwing them at Derek like stones.   “She’s just a bad person.  She’s a bad person who did bad things and you, you fell for a pretty face ‘cause you were a teenager.  How long have I been chasing Lydia now?” Stiles pointed out, gesticulating.  “At least she’s just… I dunno… High-School evil!”

“You’re not Stiles,” Derek snarled, circling him.  “You’re just some  _thing_  that looks like him.”  He wouldn’t let it get to him, even though his palms were still sweaty and his heartbeat was like thunder in his own ears.  Even though he felt short of breath, frayed on the edge of control.

“Well, that’s not quite true,” not!Stiles said conversationally, leaning against one of the support poles.  His expressions, his body language, were so LIKE Stiles that it was throwing mixed messages – Derek hardly knew what to believe.  “I’m actually  _in_  Stiles.”  He circled his fingers around each other.  “It’s like a symbiosis thing.  So what you’re seeing now is me  _and_  him.  Sort of… both of us together.  I’m thinking his thoughts, feeling what he feels.  I’ve got his memories, his raging hormones, his total lack of coordination, which is no gift.  And let me tell you something, you are a pretty stand-out feature in here, wolf-boy,” he said smugly, pointing like a gun at his own head.  “All kinds of fun little memories and dirty fantasies… oh, you didn’t know that?” he asked innocently at Derek’s expression.  “I wouldn’t take it too seriously if I were you, this kid has one hell of a fantasy life.  Which I guess sort of makes sense considering he’s surrounded by werewolves most of the time.  I’m still going through it all, but there’s definitely some juicy reading material and you… well.”  He grinned, catching his lower lip between his teeth, eyes flicking slowly down the length of Derek’s frame and back up.  “I can’t fault his taste.”  Suddenly, despite being fully-clothed, Derek felt naked.  He wanted something that covered him a little better than an old gray wife-beater.

“Get out of him,” he growled.  “Leave him alone.”

Stiles mouth pursed.  “Sorry,” he said with a shrug.  “No can do.  We’re kinda like this now…” he held up entwined fingers, “… and I gotta say, even with the whole pimply, awkward teenager thing going on I’m feeling pretty comfortable.  I might get rid of these,” he mused, running fingertips over Stiles’ moles, and Derek snarled, showing his teeth, still circling as much as he could in the confined space.  Not!Stiles grinned knowingly.  “Oh, you don’t like that idea?” he observed.  “You’re so overprotective.  It’s not necessary, you know,” he said frankly.  “I’m not hurting him.  Well.  I’m kind of mortifying him right now,” he confessed with a mischievous smile.  “I don’t think he wanted you to know how  _hot_  that whole bad-ass Alpha wolf thing is, but I figure life’s too short.  And what really kills me,” he continued as he stalked Derek slowly through the car, “is that this kid, he would never, ever hurt you.  Ever.  It would never even occur to him to wound you more than you’ve already been wounded.  He held you up for two hours, man,” he argued.  “Two hours.  I mean, I could have just let you drown.  But you won’t budge, it’s so… so freakin’ exasperating.  Somebody should pay for that,” he told Derek earnestly.

Derek shut it out, tried to keep his mind focused on the problem at hand.  “What are you going to do with him?”

Not!Stiles offered him a lopsided smile that was all!Stiles and Derek almost whined, hating the confusion, the contradictory impulses.  “Well, it’s kind of a democracy,” he explained.  “Equal votes, mostly-equal say.  You know, it was pure chance I came to be here,” he confessed.  “I didn’t count on liking him so much, or him needing someone.  Everybody’s kind of been growing away from him lately.  That’s lonely, man.  Y’know?  It’s just not fun.”  He closed in on Derek, who held still just to see what he’d do.  “And after that thing with Lydia, seeing her with Jackson… I dunno, I just gave up.  It’s never gonna be me,” he said flatly, shrugging skinny shoulders wrapped in his too-big hoodie.  “It never was.  So.”  For a moment he looked so… so small, and resigned, and  _Stiles_  that Derek wanted to say something comforting to him, but this close the scent of blood and pain was strong enough to keep him from falling for it.

“I asked you what you’re going to do,” he reminded not!Stiles, who startled a little, as if Derek had jerked him out of his train of thought.  As if he was just Stiles, rambling off on a tangent, thinking too hard and too deeply.  He was standing very close now, but his hands were shoved in his pocket, and his body language was unthreatening… almost needy, the way he leaned into Derek’s space and tilted his head back, exposing his throat, to look up at him.

“God,” he sighed, seeing the look in Derek’s gleaming red eyes.  “Nobody’s gonna hurt you, or Scott, or your pack.  That’s not what I’m here for.”

“What are you here for?” Derek demanded, and Stiles lifted an eyebrow.

“Right here?” he hedged, drawing a shuddering breath, shifting just a little closer.  “Right now?”  He paused, frowned in puzzlement, looked almost lost for a second.  “I… don’t really know.  I wanted to see you.  It felt important.  Pretty sure it wasn’t just to ogle your shoulders.”  He gave a soft, nervous, all!Stiles laugh.  “Though I’m… kind of enjoying ogling your shoulders.  And your….”  He coughed.  “Anyway.”

Derek found himself rolling his eyes, saying, “Stiles,” in that warning tone, as if everything was normal.  

And Stiles, as if everything was normal, held his hands up and said, “Right, right, I’m sorry.  I’m figuring this whole thing out, okay?  Give me a break.  It’s just… I thought I had enough weirdness in my life already.”  He rubbed at his mouth, and Derek let go of the supports, shifting down a little, letting himself be concerned.

“Stiles,” he said more gently, and Stiles looked up, wary, but so… innocent.  Except for the THING Derek could see shifting behind his eyes.  “Do you need help?”

He let out a rough-edged sigh.  “I don’t… I don’t think so,” he told Derek.  “It’s not like a… a pod-person thing, I don’t think.  It doesn’t hurt, and I’m… I’m  _here_ , so.  Do you know what it is?” he asked cautiously, and Derek had to shake his head.

“I’ll find out,” he promised, but Stiles shrugged.

“It’s okay.  I mean, I’m research guy, I’ll do some studying, see what I can come up with.  I think I wound up down here because, um… well, I knew you’d figure it out,” he said, “and I wanted to… come here first.  To tell you that, y’know, we come in peace.”  He tried to laugh at his own joke, but when Derek failed to even crack a smile, he trailed off.  “Ahhh, yeah, that wasn’t funny."

“It’s not funny,” Derek agreed, and reached out, taking Stiles’ chin in his hand, turning it up and looking deeply into his eyes.  Stiles gulped and fidgeted.  “I can see it in there,” Derek said at length.  “And Scott will be able to sense it too.  The smell is strong.  It’s not a good smell, Stiles.”

“Sorry,” Stiles, or not!Stiles, grumped.  “Didn’t mean to offend you by my very existence.  It’s not that bad is it?” he asked before Derek could respond.  “I mean… it’s just, like... bonfire, right?  Like you said.  That’s not so bad.  It could be worse,” he offered.  “It could be Sewer.  Roadkill.  Axe.”

Derek’s jaw muscle twitched.  “It’s fire,” he said quietly, “And blood, and pain.  It smells like evil.”

Stiles blinked, then let out a nervous laugh.  “But… well, come on, you know I’m not… y’know…  _evil_ ,” he snorted.  “Right?”  His voice cracked a little.  “I mean it’s me, the most I can manage on my best days is, like, mildly diabolical.”  Derek opened his mouth, then shut it, not sure he wanted to touch Stiles, not sure he should.  Stiles shifted, then asked, “Could you get used to it?  The smell?”

Momentarily flummoxed, Derek managed to ask, “Why does that matter?”

Stiles sighed.  “Look, we didn’t just come down here to introduce ourselves.  Your pack’s not here,” he pointed out with blunt tactlessness, dropping heavily into one of the plastic seats.  “And Scott’s… got other things on his mind.  We know.  We get it.  They’ve all got big things going on.  And you and me, we kind of get left in the lurch,” he reasoned, fingers knotting together in idly hypnotic patterns.  “I’m not saying that to piss you off.  I’m just saying… here’s you, and here’s me, and I… figured if anybody would understand the people who were supposed to be your friends growing away from you, you would.  Though,” he amended hastily, “Maybe ‘friends’ isn’t the word for… Erica and them.”

Derek eyed him.  “So you’re here because…?”

Stiles sighed and gave him an even look.  “Because even with this fun new head-mate, I’m really freaking lonely.  And so are you.  And I figured, after everything that happened… has anybody even swung by?  Did they care enough to check on you?”

Derek arched an eyebrow.  “I’ve seen Jackson.”

“Ch’yeah, right,” Stiles muttered, “because he wants something.  He doesn’t give a crap about you.  I’m not sure he gives a crap about anyone.  He just wants what you can give him.  This bite, this whole werewolf thing,” he went on, agitating as he warmed to his subject, “it’s not about you, it’s got nothing to do with you.  It’s about SCOTT.  Being equals with Scott, kicking Scott’s ass at Lacrosse, being the sole team captain again.  God, he’s going to be insufferable,” he grumbled, rubbing his forehead with his knuckles.

Derek couldn’t deny any of that, and he sat down across from Stiles/not!Stiles, elbows on his knees, appraising him.

“Seems to me you’ve got a way to knock him on his ass if he gets too insufferable,” he pointed out, and Stiles straightened.

“Hey.  I do,” he said with dawning glee, and clenched his hands.  “UNG.  Yeah.  Mess with me, Jackson, I’ll take you down.  I will take you down to Chinatown.” He punched the air, accidentally punched one of the supports, winced, and shook his hand.  “Yeah,” he coughed, “well, anyway.”

“You need to get this thing out of you,” Derek told him.  “I don’t know or care what it is.  Nothing with its own free will and its own agenda should be allowed to tag along in your head.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Stiles waved him off.  “Never trust anything that can think for itself if you can’t see where it keeps its brains.  I’m not stupid.  And no dodging the subject, sourwolf,” he accused suddenly, pointing at Derek.  “You don’t get to, to, to take a heartfelt talk about loneliness and abandonment and turn it around on my symbiote.”

“Were we having one of those?” Derek asked dryly, and Stiles huffed.

“Hey, I’m not the one whose little wolf-pups are all toddling off to join Scott,” he pointed out, and Derek’s eyes gleamed dangerously.

“What’s your point?”

Stiles threw his hands up.  “Oh my god.  My point is….”  He hesitated, searched for words, flopped his hands, gave up.  “Are you okay?”

“… Am I okay?”

“Yeah, you, the only other person here and the only one of us currently brooding.  Are YOU okay?”

Derek eyed him.  “You came here to ask if I’m okay.”

“I… Yeah.”  Stiles hedged a little.  “And maybe… I dunno, offer you…?”

“STILES.”

“Yeap,” he said immediately, jumping up from his chair, brushing off his hoodie.  “That’s, you’re right, that’s a bad idea.  You don’t need anything from me anyways, right?  You’re just fine… down here… all alone… in this… okay, you know what, that sounds like bullshit even to me.”  He stopped fidgeting and got into Derek’s space.  “You know, you can’t hurt me anymore.”  Derek’s hands came up to ward him off, but Stiles laced his fingers in Derek’s and yanked his hands apart with strength he’d never had before, slipping between them, straddling Derek’s lap.  The scent surrounded him, hints of Stiles, sweat, grass and boy, thoroughly covered by that burnt-meat and hot metal stench that made Derek want to rip his own clothes off, howl at the moon, and tear into something hot and bloody with his teeth.  It pulled at his worst impulses, his darkest, most monstrous instincts.  It was, he realized quickly as Stiles’ slight weight settled in his lap, dangerous.  “I’m actually stronger than you now,” he said smugly, leaning in, pressing Derek back against the seat.  “And I get you, that’s what I think you don’t understand.  You all think I’m just some… some piece of scenery,” he murmured, twisting his own hands to make Derek’s arms wrap around his back, coaxing him to hold onto him.  “Hah hah, there’s Stiles, running his mouth.  There’s Stiles tripping over thin air.  There’s Stiles making an ass of himself, in public, again.  Like I don’t pay attention.  News flash, Derek,  _I pay attention_.  Nobody knew Lydia better than me,” he declared, looking petulantly stubborn, holding onto Derek’s hands so he couldn’t push him off.  “I got her, and now I get you.  And if you can’t handle it, that’s… then… well, too bad!” he spluttered at Derek’s venomous look.  “Because I don’t see anybody else here trying to reach out to you despite that massive attitude problem you’ve got going on!”

“You need,” Derek growled, strained, “to get off me.”

“Really?” Stiles asked dangerously, leaning in until Derek could smell nothing but him.  His claws lengthened, and his jaw ached with the weight of his teeth.  “Is that what you really want?  Because I think,” he murmured, whispering in Derek’s ear, biting his neck in a way that made Derek’s hands convulse, “what you want is for me to get you off.”

“You’re not hearing me.  I’ll hurt you,” Derek gasped, panting, feeling his skin strain as his body tried to shift.  But Stiles just smiled and pressed in close, forehead against his, noses bumping.

“You can’t hurt me,” he promised, and arched as Derek’s claws dragged down his back.  “You can’t hurt me, you won’t lose me, I won’t betray you or wander off.  Face it,” he whispered against Derek’s neck, “I know what you are and what you can do, and I’m not scared.  Hear me, Derek?  I’m not--!”

The breath whooshed out of him as Derek turned and spilled him hard onto the seats.  He covered Stiles with his weight, trying to pull back, regain sense, failing utterly when Stiles dragged his fingers through his hair and started whispering, “it’s okay, c’mon, please…!”  He arched under him and Derek had never thought of himself and his wolf as separate entities before, but it was the Wolf who was in charge, and it wanted exercise.  Things blurred together quickly and he didn’t know what they did, just that it was rough and violent and so good the taste was like fresh blood in his mouth, and Stiles kept holding onto him whispering pleas and encouragements, half-formed curses, and finally, sharp cries of pleasure as intoxicating as champagne.

He blacked out.

When he woke up, he was sprawled across the thinly-padded train seats, mostly-naked and alone.  It took a few minutes of staring at the ceiling, wondering why everything smelled like hell and sex, to remember what had happened the night before.  When it came back to him, he groaned, rolled to the floor, put a hand on the seats… they were slicked with blood, Stiles’ blood, and Derek sat hard on his heels in dawning horror.

“No,” he murmured, tracing his fingers over the streaks of dried gore.  “No….”  He didn’t remember where Stiles had gone, but he’d probably run away, hadn’t he?  As soon as he could escape Derek’s claws.  He’d gotten more than he’d bargained for and it was Derek’s fault.  Whatever was in Stiles was like a siren call for his baser instincts and fuck, how long had it been since he’d lost control like that?  Ages.  There was no excuse.  Even if he’d been played, taken advantage of again… there was no excuse.  And if Derek had scratched him deep enough, or bitten him in his rutting passion, Stiles would be turning now, probably against his will, and Derek was responsible.

The door screeched on its hinges and Derek raised his head.  Would that be Scott, come to take revenge?  Peter, come to gloat?  No – the footfalls were too soft for either of them, and he was still trying to decide if diving for an intact pair of pants was worth it when Stiles poked his head through the door.  “Hey!” he said cheerfully.  “Morning.”  He climbed up into the car, fully dressed, holding a pile of clothes draped over one hand and a big sack of fast food in the other.  Derek just stared, uncomprehending – Stiles looked and moved like he was perfectly fine, but the dried blood on the seats told another story.  “Sorry I had to borrow your stuff till I could get home and change, but you kind of shredded mine.  Including my team hoodie, which you are definitely going to replace,” he scolded mildly and set the bag down next to Derek.  He extended the clothes.  “Here.  These are still clean if you want them.”  The bag smelled like bacon, sausage, and scrambled eggs, and Derek numbly took the clothing and began to pull the shirt over his head.

“You’re not hurt,” he marveled, and Stiles grinned.

“Well,” he said smugly, “I told you you couldn’t hurt me.”

“But….”  Derek rubbed his eyes, and then reached over to pick at the blood with a fingernail.

Stiles grimaced.  “Yeah, you can just ignore that.  It’s better now anyway.”

“I did this,” Derek said, and Stiles knelt down next to him.

“Yeah,” he said bluntly, “you did it.  And you know what?  I  _loved_  it.  Until it was your hands on me I had no idea I was such a kinky bastard.  And now?  I want to do it again,” he said firmly, “and again, and again.  And if you start angsting over this like it’s some kind of Buffy thing, I swear to god I’ll handcuff you down and ride you ‘till you lighten up.”  He paused, staring into space for a minute, mouth open.  “… Actually I might do that anyway.  Um.  I realized I’ve never actually seen you eat,” he added, rummaging through the bag, “but I figured I couldn’t go wrong with meat, so there’s a bacon-egg-and-cheese sandwich, and here’s some sausage biscuits and gravy and here’s just some sausage and here’s just some bacon and also pancakes just in case you’re actually more of a bread type person….”

“I’m a vegetarian,” Derek said soberly, and Stiles stopped, looking aghast, until Derek dissolved into a teasing smile and Stiles made a sound of faux-outrage and smacked him.  The smack actually kind of hurt, and knocked him back slightly.

“Oh my god you are such a gigantic troll,” he declared.  “See if I ever buy you breakfast again.”

“Aren’t you late for school?” Derek pointed out, and Stiles shrugged.

“Yeah, but I’m not the one who’s been cutting like crazy lately.  Scott can take care of himself for one day and I could use a day off.”

“Stiles,” Derek chided.  “This is starting to look like a bad horror movie.  You’re possessed by something and suddenly you’re jumping my bones, skipping school…”

“It’s not about that,” Stiles informed him, munching on a burrito stuffed with onions and peppers.

Derek, slowly unwrapping a sandwich, eyed him.  “Do I want to know?”

“Um, duh, it’s about you,” Stiles told him.  “If I leave?  And go away?  You’re going to sit here and remember all the reasons we absolutely shouldn’t have done that.  Then you’re going to work yourself up and get angry and feel guilty and you’re going to show up at my door saying, ‘never again, Stiles’ or ‘this was wrong, Stiles’ or ‘I don’t want to be a sex offender, Stiles’ and I’m gonna have to wear you down all over again and it’ll be harder next time,” he said wisely, “because you’ll be ready for me.  So congratulations, sourwolf, you get me all day long.  That’s no consolation prize, y’know,” he declared with his mouth full.  “There are some girls, somewhere in the world who’d happily shank you for that privilege.  Not sure where, but they exist.”

Derek measured him thoughtfully.  “So… you’re still here to make sure I’m okay.”

“Well, yeah,” Stiles reasoned, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand.  “What, like, one bout of amazing wolf-sex and all your wounds are healed?  That only happens in the movies.  So here I am, my phone is off, and I’ll happily get naked again for an encore performance.  I’m even wearing my absolute worst clothes,” he told Derek proudly, “so you can rip ‘em off all over again.  Grrr,” he growled playfully.

“Stiles.  Last night… did I bite you?” Derek asked carefully and Stiles hesitated.

“… Yes.  Yes, you did.  You bit me like I was your mate and you couldn’t get enough of me and it was sexy as hell.  And you don’t need to worry,” he said at Derek’s grave look.  “I can’t be infected right now.  It’s like a… like a proprietary thing.  Head-mate was here first so nothing else can get in.  If he ever leaves, well… I might have to worry about it then,” he admitted, “or it might purge like Jackson was doing, or like Gerard.  I’m not sure.  Either way, you’re officially not allowed to beat yourself up about it.  You can do it again,” he added.  “It was hot.  I liked it.  A lot.  I actually don’t think I’ve ever come that hard in my life, but then again, the rest of my life was pretty much virgin-town,” he admitted with a faint blush.

Remorse flickered across Derek’s face.  “That was your first time?”

“I know, right?  Hard to believe anybody could pass up all this,” Stiles joked.  “But sadly… yeah, yeah, that was all new.  I’m happy though,” he added.  “It was really good.  Couldn’t have been better.”

Derek shook his head.  “It could be better,” he said quietly.  “A lot better.”

“Yeah?”

He looked up, saw the foulness shift behind Stiles’ eyes, felt his own bloodlust rise to the challenge.

Stiles smiled.  “Show me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story was inspired by the .gifs you see. If you made them, let me know! I would love to give proper credit.


	4. Chapter 4

The Cyclone Café had free wifi, so while Dean munched on a legitimately delicious Ultimate pan pizza, Sam was working on his laptop, pausing for bites of food and sips of beer.  Dean had already powered through two beers and was going back for a third.  He returned and assessed Sam’s research face – furrowed eyebrows and tight mouth – and asked him, “What’d you find?”

“There’s just a lot here,” Sam told him.  “Like, a  _lot_.  Either there have been werewolves here since the town was founded or this place is a weirdness magnet.  We’ve got all the usual suspects – attacks by strange huge animals attributed to a mountain lion which they actually shot at one point, fresh graves being dug up, reports of hearing wolves in the woods when there haven’t been wolves in California for sixty years, and then there’s the Hale house fire.”

“The who?” Dean mumbled around the beer bottle.

“The Hales are a wealthy family, they’ve lived here since forever,” Sam murmured as he tabbed over to the information.  “Almost seven years ago their house, which just happens to be located way out in the woods in an isolated spot, burned to the ground with, like, the entire family trapped in the basement… save two.  Only one of the burn victims survived, along with the two kids who were at school when the fire broke out.”

“That’s cheerful,” Dean commented.  “Think they were werewolves?”

“Well, yeah, that could be, but it gets weirder,” Sam insisted.  “The one who survived, Peter Hale, was a vegetable.  For years he was convalescing in a burn-ward and then suddenly this past year one of the nurses there was murdered.  I hacked the hospital records?  According to the signature card, he checked  _himself_  out of there.”

“So, what, he just woke up one day and said, ‘I’m sick of this crap’, stabbed Nurse Ratched and made a run for it?”

“Could be.  But get this: shortly before that happened, one of the surviving kids, Laura Hale, the older sister, was found murdered in those woods.  She’d been cut in half,” Sam told him gravely, “and the top half of her body was found buried on Hale property, right behind their house.”

Dean paused in his drinking.  “Okay, that’s… creepy.”

“Yeah?   _It gets better_.”  Sam tabbed over.  “Earlier this year a kid at the local high school, a 'Jackson Wittemore' was somehow murdered on the Lacrosse field in front of parents, friends, teammates, by something with serious claws, but nobody saw anything.  Investigation was postponed when Jackson’s body was stolen from the morgue, but his obit was never released because apparently, Jackson Wittemore is walking around alive right now.”

Dean paused.  “… That sounds like a vampire thing.”

“I know, right?  And it could be, there’s tons of people missing.  But this is just… we’ve got bodies turning up randomly around town, the last survivor of the Hale family, Derek, he’s been arrested twice, once in suspicion of murdering his sister and once for suspicion of apparently chasing a bunch of teenagers into their high school and tearing half the school apart trying to murder them, except he’s been exonerated on both charges.  We’ve got a massacre at the Sheriff’s station pinned on a kid who washed up drowned in the creek right after, it’s craziness, Dean!  I’m barely beginning to make heads or tails of this,” Sam complained, exasperated.  “We’ve got people being attacked, going crazy, running around naked in the woods somehow evading manhunts the school principle disappeared and Gerard Argent actually replaced him before he was murdered himself….”

“Wait wait wait,” Dean said, holding up a hand.  “Gerard Argent replaced the high school principle?”

“That’s what it says,” Sam said helplessly.

“Hm.”  Dean spun his bottle between his hands thoughtfully.  “So… it seems like a lot of this, like, a suspicious-lot of it, is centered around the school.  Right?  I mean, you’ve got a house fire… kids only survive ‘cause they’re at school.  You’ve got a kid murdered at the school, gets up off the slab, goes right back in, presumably.  You’ve got kids being trapped and locked in the school by people trying to kill them.  And you’ve got a famous, veteran hunter somehow managing to slide his way in there.  Why?  He must have known something was going on,” Dean reasoned.  “He was probably trying to keep an eye on it.”

“Sooo… you’re thinking we should start where he started,” Sam guessed, and Dean nodded.

“We could check it out.  Could be we turn up something fishy, could be we don’t, but it’ll kill some time before we try to catch Chris Argent at home.”

“Maybe.”  Sam smiled faintly at him.  “I’m pretty sure Allison goes to this school.  And I’m pretty sure the guy who was at her house last night is on their Lacrosse team.”  He showed Dean the picture again – below the eye-flare that obscured his face, Dean noticed the boy was wearing a red hoodie with some kind of logo on the front.  Sam turned his computer around – though the phone picture was fuzzy, when you looked at the logo on Beacon Hills High’s home page, it was easy to see the symbol was the same.  The front-page article was about how the Lacrosse team was going to the state championships.

“Well, we don’t want them to notice us,” Dean mused.  “They could blow our cover.  But this Jackson kid, we could get a hold of him.  Assuming he doesn’t burn in sunlight.”

Sam nodded, sighed, and closed his computer.  “I just can’t shake the feeling we have no idea what we’re dealing with here.  Before we do anything, before we try to talk to Jackson, I’d really like to talk to Chris.”

“Okay, fair enough,” Dean agreed easily.  “We’ll case the place, pin down some suspects, maybe talk to a few students, and see what we find.  What do you think, FBI?”

“Might get them talking,” Sam hedged, and Dean nodded.  

“No, you’re right.  Nobody wants to be a narc.  But in a town like this everybody’s gonna know everybody in the Sheriff’s office.”

“Yeah.”

“And I am NOT getting out the Teddy-Bear doctor badge again.”

Sam shot him a Look.  “No… no,” he said, straightening, “but ‘doctor’s not bad.  Maybe, psychologist?  Making sure the students aren’t having too many emotional problems from everything that’s been going on?”

Dean nodded.  “That’s good.  That’s good, I like it.  I can be Doctor--”

“NOT Doctor Sexy,” Sam said severely, and Dean held up his hands.

“I was gonna say Dr. Butler.  And you can be Dr. Wakeman.  You’ll be good at this,” he assured Sam.  “It’s all that touchy-feely crap.”

The Look turned into a death glare and Dean grinned and hurriedly wolfed the rest of the pizza down.

X-X-X

Beacon Hills High was, as far as Sam and Dean could tell, a totally normal school.  For a town that was mostly middle-class, mostly white, and mostly agnostic, it seemed to boast the same privileged, shallow brats they would have expected to find at any similar school in the US.  After Dean got jostled in the hall for the dozenth time with no apology, he started elbowing past the students, ignoring their cries of protest.  Sam smirked.  “You know you can’t kill the kids, right?” he asked, and Dean grumbled, “For me to kill them, they’d have to acknowledge my existence.  WATCH it,” he snapped as a tall young man, stepping back from his locker, ran into him.  

The boy turned around and curled his upper lip at Dean in an actual snarl.  “YOU watch it,” he sneered, a rumbling growl underscoring his voice, the kind of noise no true human could make.  He looked Dean up and down as if he was supremely unimpressed by what he saw.  “Are you even supposed to be here?  I don’t see your visitor badges.”

Sam reached over and grabbed Dean before he could respond.  “We’re counselors,” he told the boy.  “We work for the state department.”

“Yeah?  Well, I’d like to see some ID,” the boy demanded, and Sam nodded, reaching into his pocket, leaning over to mouth  _that’s Jackson Wittemore_  at Dean as he withdrew his state department badge.  He tried to just flip it open, but Jackson snatched it… he was fast, too fast for Sam to dodge.  After scrutinizing Sam’s badge, he flipped it carelessly at his chest and held his hand out to demand Dean’s.  “Come on,” he snapped when Dean took an instant too long.  Gaping, Dean handed him the ID, which he also tossed back when he was done, rolling his eyes.  “You should tell the state department to hire people who DON’T look like perverts,” was his parting shot as he stepped into the throng of students and was swept away.

Dean clenched a fist.  “Please let that kid be a monster,” he growled.  “I will gank his ass so fast….”

“You may get the chance,” Sam assured him, “but for now we have to find some regular students.  Come on, I’ve got an idea.”

Dean submitted reluctantly to Sam’s grip on his jacket, but wound up letting himself be pulled along.  Sam led them outside, where a group of tables was clustered, and sure enough there were students grouped in small clicks, some eating, some doing homework, most goofing off with their free period.  “Jackpot,” Dean murmured, and moved in on a group of girls sitting at a shaded table.  Sam rolled his eyes and went to talk to a nerdy-looking boy doing calculus.

Over the next couple of hours, they discovered the students were roughly as well-informed as they were – some sort of macabre fascination seemed to hold the school in thrall, because everyone Sam talked to wanted to gossip about how Lydia Martin ran naked in the woods for two days after being attacked at the Winter Formal, and how Allison Argent’s aunt was a crazy mass murderer, and how a girl named Erica had suddenly become the hottest vamp who ever vamped, Isaac Lahey’s father was murdered and Isaac was totally a suspect for a while and was even arrested right on the Lacrosse field, and the name of the kid who died the night of the Sheriff’s station massacre was named Matt and he was a photographer, and how Allison Argent was one of the prettiest girls in school second only, maybe, to Lydia and how she and Scott had been a total item but had broken up recently probably because, as one girl put it, Scott McCall was a total flake. Cute, she assured Dean, but unreliable. Nobody had any intelligence to offer on Jackson, though conspiracy theories abounded, but the general decision seemed to be that someone had called the code on him prematurely and they’d been able to bring him back from the edge of death. Of course, that didn’t explain why he’d spent no time in the hospital. As for wolves, plenty of people had heard them, or talked to people who heard them. Plenty of people had seen them, or talked to people who had seen them. A junior, soft-spoken, related privately to Sam that one day she’d come in and found her locker CLAWED, and that the damage done to the school had included plenty of claw-marks as well and the murder of a janitor, whose body had yet to be found. Then she said to Sam, “If you’re curious about that group, you should talk to Stiles.”

Sam paused. “I’m sorry? What’s a Stiles?”

“It’s short for Stilinski,” she explained. “I'm not sure anybody knows his real first name.  He hangs out with everybody on the Lacrosse team, mostly Scott and Allison. He was in the school when it happened. And his dad’s the sheriff… I heard he was there too the night everybody got killed.”

“Oh, really? Where can I find him?” Sam asked, intrigued, and she shrugged. 

“He’s an underclassman so he’s not in my classes. You could have him paged to the office.”

When they’d finished, Sam pulled Dean aside and told him what he’d found, and Dean nodded. “So, are you going to page him?”

“Guess I could, or we could stake out the Lacrosse field and get a look at all these guys at once.”

Dean nodded. “Sounds like a plan.  Rather not hang around the office anyway… brings back memories.”

Sam eyed him.  “Yeah.  I’m sure.”  They gathered their notes and went around the back of the school to avoid notice. “So, what exactly does a Lacrosse field look like?”

“You got me,” Dean admitted.  “Maybe kinda like a football field?  But with…?”  He made a few fumbling gestures, and when Sam just stared at him, he gave up.  “Yeah, I got nothin’.”

“… Maybe I’ve got something.  Look.”  He turned Dean around with a hand on his shoulder.  There was a set of bleachers which should probably have been their first clue, though the goals set on the field looked like soccer goals.  Some kids who apparently had a free period had taken it over and were standing around in t-shirts and pads, using long sticks to pass a small white ball back and forth to each other.  Dean’s eyebrows raised.  

“That’s Lacrosse?”

“Must be.”  Sam wandered closer, eyeing the two kids, boys, they could see now, both tall.  One was lanky, the other broad-shouldered and muscular.  Neither wore a team jersey.  As Sam and Dean watched, their passing routine went faster and faster.  They circled each other and spread apart, trying farther and farther shots.  Neither of them missed even once, and Dean had to admit grudging admiration.

“Not bad.”

“Yeah, maybe too good.”  Sam’s eyes were narrowed as he watched the little white ball sail back and forth, keeping an eye on the exceptionally graceful, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it footwork the boys were performing.  “Dean, has it started to feel to you like this entire town is just…?”

“Really f’d up?” Dean provided helpfully.  “I’ve been getting that impression.”

Sam sighed and rubbed his eyes.  “I’m probably seeing things.”

“Well, fortunately I know the cure for that,” Dean volunteered.  “We get the hell away from this school.  Seriously, man, what is it with kids?  They’re fucking awesome right up till they turn fourteen and then they turn into unbelievable little shits?”

“It’s called adolescence,” Sam informed him as they headed back to the Impala.

X-X-X

Chris Argent was home.

He greeted them at the door with a careful nod.  “The Winchester boys,” he said before Sam or Dean could introduce themselves.  “My daughter mentioned you’d stopped by.”

He showed them into the living room where a fire was burning in the fireplace.  “Can I get you a cup of coffee?” he offered as he saw them settled onto the couch.  “The hospitality around here isn’t what it once was.  I trust you understand that.”  

“Water under the bridge,” Dean assured him.

“Totally our fault,” Sam agreed.  “We should have called before we came over.  Just with… with all the deaths,” he said, “it seemed urgent.”

Chris made a noncommittal sound and  leaned against the fireplace and eyed the two Hunters parked on his couch.  Chris was about Dean’s height, grizzled, prematurely gray if the age of his daughter was any indication.  Despite his obvious wealth he still had that Hunter look – too little fat between skin and muscle, too lean in the wrong places, too world-weary around the eyes.  Of course, grief could also do that to a person.  “I never actually met your father,” he informed them.  “Heard about him.  Heard he was a good Hunter and a good man… intense.  Maybe a little unforgiving.”

Sam shrugged diplomatically.  “Sounds like you’ve heard a lot.”

“And now you boys are following in his footsteps?  That’s a rough life,” he mused.

“Work needs doing,” Dean replied a little sharply.  “We’re the ones that can do it.  It just shakes out that way sometimes, no point complaining.”  He forced a brief smile which Chris returned with a wry, knowing smirk of his own.

“So, tell me,” Chris said, fingertips wandering down to caress the handle of the fireplace poker.  Pure iron, Sam noted.  Old-fashioned.  “Are you here to help me?  To protect what’s left of my family?  Or are you here to kill monsters?  And,” he added before Sam could say anything, “if you’re here to kill monsters, do you plan to do that on my orders and by my discretion… or your own?”

Dean’s expression was thunderous, but he held his peace, so Sam answered.  “Sir, to tell the truth, we’re completely out of our depth here,” he confessed, and Chris chuckled in agreement.  “We saw the reports and figured it was a straightforward werewolf case.  Now we’re not so sure.  That’s why we wanted to talk to you before we did anything.  You’re really the only one who could explain all the… the deaths, the disappearances, the assaults, the grave-robbery.  And frankly, knowing as little as we do about everything that’s been happening, we’re just here to help out if you need us.  Not to put too fine a point on it,” he said with sympathy, “but you’ve lost a lot of people lately and considering the way your father died, it doesn’t seem like it’s over yet.”

Chris drew in a breath, nodding slightly.  “No,” he agreed.  “No, it’s not over yet.  But things in Beacon Hills are nowhere near as black-and-white as you may have been led to believe.  There are children involved, innocents.  There’s been some… some malpractice on the part of certain other members of my family who are now… deceased.  You see we had a code once upon a time,” he explained.  “We only hunted the ones who killed.  We didn’t hunt minors unless they were a proven threat to human life.  In the last days of their lives my… my sister,” he said painfully, “and my father abandoned the code.  And they paid for it.  Justice in these parts is swift.”

“I’m sorry,” Sam said gently.  “Can I ask what happened?  The real story?”

“Well.”  Chris swung away from the fireplace, hesitated, then said, “This conversation needs a drink.”  He poured them both a generous amount of brandy and finally settled into a chair, propping one ankle on the opposite knee.  “My… my sister, Kate, she died first.  You see, a few years back she found a family of werewolves living off in the woods.”

“The Hales,” Sam provided, and Chris smiled.

“You’ve done your research.”  He tipped his glass to Sam.  “They were generational and very little threat but there were so many of them we… we kept an eye on them to be cautious.”

“I’m sorry,” Dean cut in, “Very little threat?  How is a house full of werewolves ‘very little threat’  They need to eat, you’re not telling me the local wildlife was enough to sustain them without having to kill humans?  Just think how many hearts those suckers would be ripping out.”

Nodding, Chris chuckled softly and took a slow sip.  “Your experience with werewolves is… pretty limited.  There’s more to the shapeshifting breed than you know.  True, there are werewolves who on the full moon suffer a limited transformation which results in a fugue state, a regression into the embodiment of their own Id.  They hunt those who threaten them, eat the hearts, wake up the next morning and remember nothing.  That kind, for obvious reasons, has been hunted almost to extinction.  They’re at an evolutionary disadvantage in the information age; they can’t hide, especially from those like you and me who know how to look.  But they’re only one branch of the evolutionary tree.  Have you ever encountered a true shapeshifter?”

“The kind that can take on any person’s appearance?” Sam clarified.  “Once.”

Chris nodded.  “Another branch.  One that has evolved for greater survivability.  They have camouflage and they breed true.  How many of them are really out there right now, can either of you make a guess?  There’s no law saying they all go crazy, start killing, make the papers.  Some of them just live with it.  But they can’t turn humans into their own kind – that’s the advantage in propagation that they lost.  Then you have your skinwalkers, who can change between a single unique human form and a single, unique, completely normal-looking animal form.  They can turn humans with a bite and they can also pass the trait to their genetic children.  Our records are quite thorough but much of our information on the process of genetics and evolutionary mutations was understandably primitive in past centuries, so we have only vague ideas of how or when the skinwalker line and the line that produced the werewolves of Beacon Hills split.  The only thing we’re certain of is a common ancestor.  These werewolves breed true, and those who are the most powerful, the pack Alphas, can turn humans with their bite, though lesser pack members don’t possess that ability.  They live in families, in pack structures, just like wild wolves, usually headed by a breeding pair and made up of their siblings and offspring.  They hunt,” he confirmed, “and eat meat, but they don’t need to eat hearts specifically.  One deer can feed a moderately-sized pack, and they usually restrain their hunts to Full Moon nights.  The Betas have a mild transformation such as you’d expect to see in your common werewolf, but the Alphas… they’re something else entirely.  A higher stage of evolution,” he muttered, and drank.  “And extremely dangerous.  They draw strength from the pack – the bigger the pack the stronger the Alpha.  And the pack draws strength from the Alpha in a very literal way – the more werewolves you have, the stronger, faster, and keener they are.  Silver does nothing against them, but there are some old folk techniques that still work.  Wolfsbane, mountain ash, and of course, the old stand-by.”

Sam’s eyebrows had drawn together, and he leaned on his knees, idly twisting his hands.  “Fire.”

Chris argent took another drink.  “Yes.”

“So… the Hale house fire.  Was it sanctioned?” he asked carefully, and Chris sighed.

“That’s hard for me to say.  I don’t know if Kate was calling her own shots or if Gerard was calling them for her.  I know she… took the initiative to find the way in.  The Hale family had a weak link she used to get them where she wanted them, and then….”  He shrugged.

“Then she locked them in the basement and set them on fire.”

Chris nodded slowly.  “All but Derek.  And Laura.”

Sam frowned.  “Mr. Argent… how did Laura Hale die?”

“The survivor.  You see,” he explained, his voice turning gravelly, “after the parents were murdered, Laura became the Alpha.  The mantle passed to her.  And Peter, her uncle, actually survived the burning though he was severely injured.  He convalesced here in Beacon Hills for… oh… six years.  As far as anyone knew he was a vegetable.  But you should never underestimate a werewolf’s ability to regenerate,” he counseled them.  “Peter came back to himself.  He wanted to be Alpha.  So he killed Laura and took the mantle from her.”

Dean’s eyebrows rose.  “Nice.  So, does the pack have an Alpha now?”

“Well, that continues to be a long story.  You see, while pretending to still be convalescent, Peter, as the Alpha, bit and turned another Beacon Hills citizen.”

“That would be Scott,” Sam said, and Chris actually looked startled.  His knuckles went white on his glass, but he managed to keep his voice admirably level.

“Yes, I heard you met him last night.  What led you to believe he was a werewolf?”

Sam took out his phone and showed Chris the photo.  “Shapeshifter eye-flare,” he explained almost apologetically, since it was clear Chris had not intended to tell them the identity of Peter’s victim.  Chris’s eyes held an element of admiration.

“Resourceful.  That’s a good trait in a Hunter,” he observed.  “Yes, Scott was Peter’s first Beta.  But he declined to submit to Peter’s control or to join his pack.  Peter was pressuring him, you see.  To cut ties.”  He finished his brandy and refilled it.  “His family, friends.  Girlfriend.”

“Let me guess.”  Dean offered him a humorless smirk.  “Your daughter.”

Chris cleared his throat, but lifted his chin almost in defiance.  “Yes.  They were dating at the time.  They have rituals,” he explained.  “Pack acceptance.  Peter wanted Scott to be blooded by him, to share a kill, and to sacrifice his old ‘pack’ to bond with the new one.  Scott refused.  Across the board.”  He waved a hand.  “And he didn’t know who Peter was, having only seen him in his fully-shifted Alpha form.  By the time they figured it out, several people were dead, but in the end we cornered Peter and Derek slit his throat.”

“Wait.  We?”  Dean straightened a little.  “By ‘we’ you’re talking about you and the werewolves, aren’t you?”

“Actually it was Allison, Scott, and Derek,” Chris confessed, “Along with some of their friends.  Stiles.  Jackson.”

“We’ve been hearing those names,” Sam informed him, and Chris threw him a resigned look.

“You’ll hear more of them,” he promised.  “They burned Peter Hale with some kind of self-igniting Molotov cocktail, which weakened him enough that Derek was able to slash his throat and take the Alpha mantle from him.”

“A bunch of high schoolers did that?” Dean said, sounding impressed, and Chris smiled. 

“If you ever get completely caught up,” he said wisely, “you will be amazed at what this particular bunch of high schoolers has done.  Well, anyway.”  He leaned over and refilled Dean’s brandy.  “So, now Derek is the Alpha.  But I told you not to underestimate Peter’s ability to regenerate.  He managed to heal from what Derek did to him.  If I understand werewolves, and I think by now I do, I’d say he’s gathering his strength to take the position back from Derek.  Derek, meanwhile, has been expanding his pack, trying to solidify his power against Peter, and against us as well.”

“Mr. Argent.”  Sam hesitated.  “You still haven’t told us how Kate died.”

“Haven’t I?”  Chris looked very far away for a moment, then said, “Peter tore out her throat.  Vengeance.  For his family.”

“And your wife?”

“That….” Chris sighed.  “My wife never accepted our daughter’s choice of… companion.  Allison knows full well what Scott is,” he explained, “and even though they’re not together now they’ve chosen to stick close to one another.  I believe she… she anchors him.  In his humanity.”  He ignored Dean’s incredulous snort.  “Since Scott is a minor and hasn’t killed anyone, by our code, he should have been safe but my wife… decided to take matters into her own hands.  She captured Scott alone and tried to poison him with wolfsbane smoke.  It would have been a slow death,” he confessed.  “Painful.  I’m not going to pretend she was acting objectively.  But Derek is… has always been… protective of Scott.  He came to the rescue.  My wife put up a fight.  Derek used the weapons that were available to him.  And my wife chose to kill herself rather than turn on the Full Moon.”

“Sounds like you’re not blaming him,” Dean accused, and Chris fixed a cold gaze on him.

“I mourned my wife,” he said tightly.  “And I loved her.  But loving her does not mean I can’t acknowledge that she made some really, truly stupid decisions.  Neither she nor my father trust Allison.  Trust her to make her own decisions, to guide her own life.  I do, I always have.  And Scott was no threat.  To kidnap a teenager, to torture him, to poison the breath in his lungs until he chokes on his own bile, wracked with kind of nerve pain a werewolf gets from aconite poisoning… I’m not saying she deserved it,” he said sadly.  “But he was fifteen.  And she wasn’t doing it because he was a werewolf, or because he was doing anything wrong, or because he was forcing or pressuring Allison to do anything she didn’t want to do; she did it because Scott fell for the wrong girl.  And when you do things like that to a child you have to expect the scales will eventually… balance.  As for Derek… he was protecting his family,” he murmured.  “Just like Victoria.  I still hate him for it, I think, but then again, he hates me for the murder of his family at Kate’s hands.  It’s a vicious cycle.  I’m not going after him unless he gives me a good reason,” he concluded.  “I think it’s time we stopped this.”

“So, what, you’re giving up?” Dean demanded.  “Those fucking monsters killed your family.  You’re gonna tell me you’re not lookin’ for revenge?”

Chris settled back and measured Dean calmly.  “I still haven’t told you what happened to my father.”

“Please,” Sam interjected before Dean could say anything.  “Go on.”

Chris sighed.  “So, after Kate’s death my father came down here looking for revenge.  He chose not to hold to the code.  During this time, Jackson, whose name you said you’d heard, had… prevailed upon Derek to Turn him.  He and Scott are on the Lacrosse team, I guess Scott was outperforming him.”

“Wait,” Dean said, holding up a hand.  “Dude wanted to become a  _monster_  so he could be better at  _sports_?”

“You’d have to ask him that,” Chris demurred.  “I just know he asked and Derek agreed.  But Jackson’s body started rejecting the bite.  That happens sometimes, though very, very rarely.  We believe he inherited a certain amount of immunity from prolonged contact with his girlfriend Lydia Martin, who was attacked by Peter and survived without Turning.  She seems to be fully immune.  But that’s not important.  Sometimes when someone is bitten, their infection takes a turn for the severely mutated.  Jackson, who’s a bit of a snake, wound up becoming a Kanima – a snake-like creature whose only purpose is to hunt and kill.  The creature’s stronger, faster, and deadlier than a whole pack of werewolves but it can be mastered.  Initially a student was serving as its master, forcing it to kill, but when the… when the Sheriff’s station was attacked,” Chris said, “Gerard murdered that student and took the Kanima as his own.  He used it to force Derek to give him the Bite.”

“Okay, wait, hold on.”  Chris waited patiently while Dean tried to process that.  “Your Dad… the famous hunter… wanted to be a werewolf?”

“He was dying,” Chris said simply.  “Cancer.  Lycanthropy is an incredible disease, in that there’s no other disease it can’t cure.”

“So… what happened?” Sam asked, and Chris offered him a wry smile.

“Ah.  Well.  That… is interesting.  You see… Gerard tried to manipulate Scott to betray Derek and Derek’s pack into his hands.  He threatened Scott’s mother, so Scott understandably complied or at least, Gerard believed he did.  But Scott, it turns out, switched Gerard’s cancer pills for mountain ash.  So when he forced Derek to bite him, his body rejected the Bite, and rejected it violently.  Peter killed Jackson, thus banishing the Kanima and allowing the Bite to take hold in him fully.  So at the end of this sordid, terrible story,” Chris said bitterly, “My father crawls away, dying, and someone rips his heart out to finish the job.  Jackson comes back from the brink of death, or maybe even beyond it, as a werewolf.  Derek is still the Alpha, Peter is alive and chomping at the bit to challenge him, I’m sure, and Derek’s pack, while in mild disarray, is still at large and as far as I know they are refraining from murdering anyone.”

The Winchesters turned that over in their heads slowly, carefully, picking through the pieces.  Finally, Dean said, “So, basically, we need to gank…  _everybody_.  We need to gank everybody?”

“Dean,” Sam protested, “we don’t ‘gank’ anybody!  Weren’t you listening?  It’s not that easy!”

“No, I’m listening, and what I’m hearing is you’ve got a pack of like a dozen werewolves…”

“Seven,” Chris corrected him.

“… SEVEN freakin’ werewolves running around a high school.  That sounds like a recipe for bad stuff to me!” he declared angrily.  “I mean, I don’t know about you, but I remember what I was like as a teenager.  Throw in all that werewolf juju?  We’ve got a frickin’ powder keg on our hands.  And that’s before I found out these kids can make freakin’ self-igniting molotovs, Sam, are you shitting me?”

“I would prefer it,” Chris said, his voice easy and level, “if you didn’t kill anyone.  As of now we have an uneasy truce… I would hate to break it and sacrifice more lives to a family feud.  I told you the truth out of respect for your family, and your father,” he said a little more sternly.  “Not because I feel obligated toward you.  And I’ll tell you honestly – this is not a threat, this is an observation, from someone who’s been in the thick of all this – if you go up against these wolves, these children, their friends, their families, you will lose.”

Dean snorted.  “What, like this Scott kid is such a badass?”

“It’s not just Scott,” Chris said patiently.  “Scott has Allison.  Scott has Stiles.  Scott has Derek.  Scott has Derek’s pack who, from what I hear, are a good deal more fond of Scott than they are of Derek.  He has friends here in town who are versed in the old folklore, the old magic, who can provide him with knowledge and aid.  And as much as I hesitate to say it, I think if it really came down to that, Scott also has me.”  He finished off his brandy while the Winchesters stared at him and set the glass firmly on the side table.  “So, there it is.”

Dean seemed speechless.  He let out a slow breath of air and rubbed his hand through his hair.  Sam glanced at him, concerned, then turned back.

“Mr. Argent,” he began, but was interrupted.

“It’s just Chris, Sam.”

“Excuse me.  Chris.”  Sam let the moment stretch, searching Chris’s face… he just looked tired, and for that Sam couldn’t blame him.  He couldn’t blame him for giving up a fight that had cost him his father, his wife, and his sister before it claimed him or his daughter.  He wouldn’t have blamed him, honestly, for retiring.  “If we stayed, and if we tried to help with… whatever you think needs to be done to make Beacon Hills safe from supernatural threats.  What would you want us to do?”

“You want a game plan?”  Chris rubbed his jaw.  “As it stands now, I see only two real threats.  The first, obviously, is Peter Hale.  Derek has never been one to involve innocent bystanders in his own affairs,” he explained.  “He doesn’t murder for fun, and he doesn’t Bite anyone who doesn’t consent to it.  Peter’s different.  Derek may be a mostly incompetent Alpha,” he allowed, “but the last thing I want is Peter in charge.  Him, I would take out.  Talk to Derek, make sure he wouldn’t take it as an act of war against his pack, but knowing their relationship, I wouldn’t be surprised if Derek offered to help.  He has good reason to fear Peter,” he explained.  “And to hate him for his sister’s murder; they were close.  I would also keep an eye on Jackson.  He’s a bully on the best of days.  On the worst, he’s power-hungry, driven, a brutal perfectionist.  He pays lip-service to authority when it suits him and he recognizes no authority that isn’t capable of kicking his ass.  If he cares about anyone besides himself, and maybe, MAYBE Lydia, I haven’t seen it.  And from my daughter, I understand he’s been pretty terrible even to Lydia lately.  I think he bears watching.  If he doesn’t fall in line… well.  That’s why I’m still here.”

“Man, the fact that you even give the creeps a chance to ‘fall in line’ is seriously freaking me out right now,” Dean muttered.  “They’re monsters.  They don’t ‘fall in line’.  They kill people.  Seriously, have you missed all the death going around lately?  And this Jackson kid, if what you say about him is true, he’s already killed, why haven’t you taken him out?”

“That’s true, but that wasn’t in his control.”

“And it is now?  And since when does it matter?  We don’t have time to sit around feeling sorry for the monsters!” Dean snapped.  “And I’m frickin’ sorry he got a raw break, I am, but he’s a threat.  He’s a threat who’s already killed parents, teachers, police officers.”

“And as I said,” Chris said patiently.  “He’s had his chance.  If he steps out of line, I’ll end him.  He knows that.  I made it very clear to him before he was Bitten.  In a couple of years he’ll be a legal adult anyway, and at that point… if he makes it to that point… I suppose we’ll see.”

“This is crazy,” Dean snarled.

“It was crazy before,” Chris retorted, leaning forward aggressively.  “Now it’s actually somewhat calm.  The last thing I need is a couple of green-horns blowing into town igniting the powder-keg I’m sitting on!  So you listen to me, Winchester,” he growled.  “Beacon Hills is my family’s territory and I am the head of the family.  Until my daughter is old enough to lead us, you do things MY way or you get out of my town.  Now, are you going to help me kill a werewolf, or are you going to leave my family in peace?” he demanded, and Sam held up his hands frantically.

“Whoa!” he cried.  “Whoa, whoa, GUYS.  There’s no need for this.  Chris, I just… I think this is a lot to absorb,” he said hastily, “for my brother and for me.  Let us think about it,  okay?  I’ll get your number.  If we stay, if we leave, I’ll call you.  Nothing will happen without your say-so.  Is that fair?  Because I just think we could all stand to calm down and take a deep breath,” he said, directing that last part at Dean, who spat, “Screw calm, I am calm!”

Sam turned to try and get him to subside, and Chris rose.  

“I’m afraid we’re going to have to call an end to this anyway,” he said.  “They’ll be starting Lacrosse practice in fifteen minutes, I should get to the school.”

“We were actually going to sit in on the game,” Sam told him.  “Why are you going?”

Chris raised his eyebrows.  “Just because I don’t want to kill a bunch of kids doesn’t mean I’m not keeping an eye on them,” he said dryly.  “Of those seven werewolves, four are on the Lacrosse team.  You may have noticed we’re going to State.  As long as they’re playing, I’m going to be there both to keep my daughter company and to make sure nobody gets antsy and Shifts on the field.  Are you coming?”  He picked up his keys and sauntered for the door, and after a brief hesitation during which Sam and Dean had a silent conversation consisting mostly of facial expressions, they followed.


	5. Chapter 5

Allison joined them as soon as they’d taken a seat with other spectators in the stands.

“Stiles wasn’t at school today,” was the first thing out of her mouth. Though she shot suspicious, almost venomous glances at Sam (who looked apologetic) and Dean (who just smirked), she didn’t address them, and Sam figured that was just as well. “His Dad came by during study hall and asked if we’d seen him.”

“What did you tell him?” Chris asked calmly, and Allison shrugged.

“That I hadn’t, but I thought maybe he snuck over to visit Lydia. She hasn’t come back to school yet.”

“Well, if he didn’t, that excuse won’t last. You don’t think he’s in trouble, do you?”

Allison sighed, knotting her fingers in her sweater sleeves. “I don’t know. Scott was worried. He’s not answering his phone either.”

“You and Scott want to try to sniff him out? I’ve got the car,” Chris offered, ignoring the way Dean and Sam were blatantly eavesdropping on the conversation.

A molten-hot blonde vixen sitting in front of them, two rows down, leaned backward to purse her full, luscious lips in their direction. She also gave them an excellent view down her shirt. “I don’t think that’s gonna be necessary, Mr. Argent,” she said.

Chris raised an eyebrow. “And why’s that, Erica?” he asked evenly, unmoved by her display, though Dean was gawking while trying not to look like he was eyeing a high school girl. Erica noticed, and flashed him a predatory, come-hither smile that had him squirming uncomfortably and looking anywhere but directly at her. She shrugged, dismissing him, and pointed one lacquered nail at the far end of the field.

Two male figures were trudging toward them from the rear parking lot. The taller wore a black leather jacket and jeans, the shorter wore the red Beacon Hills Lacrosse uniform and carried a stick. Allison rose halfway out of her seat. “Is that Stiles?” she wondered.

“Yup.” Erica pursed her lips. “Guess Derek stole him to play sidekick again.”

Suddenly, Dean’s interest was regained, and he leaned forward. “Is that Derek?” he asked, pointing toward the boys. “Derek Hale?”

Erica appraised him, then flicked her tongue across her lower lip. “Who wants to know?” she purred, and Dean, taken aback, immediately withdrew. Erica gave a low, sultry laugh. “You’re cute,” she informed Dean before sitting back up to watch the congregating players.

Dean glanced at Sam, who was obviously trying with all his might not to laugh, elbowed him, and muttered, “Shut up.”

Chris caught Sam’s eye and gave a knowing nod. “That,” he said gravely, “is Derek Hale.”

Derek was the kind of person who Sam might have pegged as a werewolf even if he hadn’t been expecting to find one. His eyes were so intense they gleamed across the field, and he had the kind of five-o-clock shadow that never truly goes away, spiky black hair, and a long, toned frame that was practically bristling with barely-restrained power. Stiles, on the other hand, was pale and gawky, and while they watched he stepped in a gopher hole and almost went down if not for Derek’s quick reflexes. The werewolf picked him up and put him back on his feet while Stiles clearly was trying to joke off his embarrassment. Sam could relate.

When they reached the field Stiles broke into a run and Derek changed course, veering off behind the bleachers while Stiles went to sit on the bench. It was hard to tell who anyone was while they were wearing their helmets, and Dean just barely managed to spot Scott by his jersey, moving fast through his teammates to meet Stiles, recoiling and exclaiming something Dean couldn’t hear.

Stiles grabbed him by his helmet and a whispered, hasty conversation was had. Then Stiles affectionately jostled Scott’s helmet and the two of them separated to take their seats.

The Lacrosse coach was a loud-mouthed man who seemed precariously close to a psychotic breakdown. Watching him vent his frustrations on the players was entertaining, at least, and Sam and Dean had a lot to watch as the boys practiced shots, then lined up to scrimmage – they knew about Jackson and Scott, but that left two more werewolves on the field. Sam pegged one wearing a jersey that read ‘Lahey’ because he was being entirely too affectionate with Scott (hanging around him, bumping into him, touching on him) for anyone who wasn’t either gay or a pack-mate. Maybe both. The other was harder to peg. There was a big guy who Sam recognized as the one they’d seen practicing earlier who was making mincemeat of the other kids during the scrimmage, but that could have just been because he was big. Erica seemed fond of him – she cheered whenever he knocked someone over, shouting, “Go Boyd!” loud enough to be heard across the field. When McCall checked an opponent and made a goal shot, she elbowed Allison’s knee and murmured, “Nice!”

Allison shot her a deadly look and moved her knee away. Sam made a note of that – clear animosity between these two.

Erica also cheered for Lahey whose name, Sam learned by listening to her, was Isaac. Sam silently put her name at the top of his list of werewolf suspects, and added Boyd nearer the bottom – she might just like him because he was handsome and athletic but the conjunction of his name with Scott’s was too significant to ignore. But not a single one of them did anything more shocking and attention-drawing than Jackson Wittemore, who seemed to be reveling in his new power to the detriment of his entire team. He played rough, knocking his teammates all over the place, stealing passes and shooting goals the goalie seemed afraid to try to stop. His coach was apoplectic with joy – he was probably thinking about how Jackson would crush the other teams when they went to the state level of competition – but Jackson’s own teammates were starting to grow wary of him. Scott kept yanking him aside for agitated brief conversations from which Jackson kept breaking free, leaving Scott obviously frustrated.

“The hell does Jackson think he’s doing?” Erica complained.

Allison leaned over to her father. “Scott’s trying to get him to tone it down,” she said anxiously. “I don’t know if he’ll listen. He could seriously hurt someone.”

To Dean’s eternal frustration, rather than proposing they shoot the sonuvabitch, Chris said, “Do you want to try to reason with him?”

“I don’t know,” Allison fretted. “He might listen but since… y’know… I don’t know, it’s like he thinks we’re all beneath him.”

“I don’t think anyone could think that about you,” Chris murmured to his daughter and kissed her head. “Go talk to him.”

Allison started to rise, then said, “Oh my god.”

Dean turned his eyes back to the field just in time to see Jackson hit Stilinski with a bone-rattling crunch that was audible even where they were sitting. Stilinski went down hard and Allison was on her feet, tripping over Erica who, animosity forgotten, grabbed her and hauled her bodily down to the field.

“Stiles!” Allison cried, and she wasn’t the only one to rush out there – Erica was on her heels, Scott, who had been playing defense, put on a burst of clearly inhuman speed to get there and literally throw Jackson off him, and even Lahey stopped what he was doing and jogged over. Chris was half-way out of his seat, and Dean strained to see over the mass of people while the coach blew his whistle repeatedly.

“Dude,” Dean poked Chris. “The Stiles guy, is he human?”

Chris cast him a worried look. “Very.”

Dean winced, and Sam laid a hand on his shoulder. “That’s going to be broken ribs at the very least,” he murmured, and Dean had to agree, because that had been one hell of a sack. The people on the field seemed to think so too; the coach was yelling at somebody named Greenburg to get a stretcher, and Scott came bursting out of the knot of people to grab Jackson and slug him in the side of the head, helmet and all. Jackson went down, but bounced back up, and then both of them were yanking on each other’s helmets, circling with their heads together like a pair of real wolves testing each other’s dominance. In the ruckus there was no chance to hear what they were saying. Sam and Dean exchanged a quick look, and then Dean slipped out of the row and climbed down to the field, trying to look casual as he circled around the knot of concerned people. The coach was trying to comfort Stilinski, but when he touched his chest Stilinski gave a scream of pain through a clenched jaw. “Somebody call his father!” the coach yelled, and then cursed impressively, which seemed nothing more than hilarious until Dean remembered with a sudden and sobering shock that Stiles was the Sheriff’s son. Hoo-boy.

“—Kind of strength you have now you can seriously hurt someone!” Scott was snarling at Jackson when Dean got close enough to hear. “And if you don’t get it together you’re going to bring the Hunters down on yourself, and all of us!”

“Yeah?” Jackson snarled back. “Well, as far as I see it, that’s not my problem, McCall. You know damned well he could have been just as strong as us if he wanted to, but he’s too much of a pussy and if you choose to stay a pussy you take the consequences. I’m not holding back just because you can’t get with the game!”

“RRRRARGH!” Scott tackled him, letting out a bestial growl, and began slugging him, and Dean hustled over to grab the back of Scott’s jersey.

“HEY!” he snapped, and when Jackson started to get up, Dean casually back-handed him… and then cursed through his teeth and shook his hand out because punching someone wearing a Lacrosse helmet wasn’t as painless as Scott made it look. “You two, cut it out! There’s humans around, you wolf out, I’ll shoot you myself!” He pulled his jacket back just enough to show Jackson he had a gun. Scott seemed bewildered by his very presence, but Jackson just showed his teeth.

“I knew you didn’t belong here,” he gloated, and Dean almost drew on him right then and there just to wipe the smugness off his face. “So, what? Are you the reinforcements? More little Argent errand-boys?”

“You have no. Freakin’. Clue. Who I am, little boy,” Dean snarled. “I’ve seen plenty of you already and what I’ve seen, I don’t like. S’far as I’m concerned what you just did makes you a bona fide threat to humanity and I’m not seein’ a whole lot of reasons why I shouldn’t gank you right now.”

“WHOA,” Scott protested, getting between Dean and Jackson, suddenly conciliatory instead of challenging. “Come on, come on, just… just stop. Nobody’s killing anybody. Especially not here,” he pointed out. “Look… what’d you say your name was?” Jackson was getting up behind him and the look in his eyes was serpentine, but Scott was focused on Dean, looking about as desperate and placating as any sixteen-year-old kid would.

“Not your business,” Dean demurred, since looking up their actual names would connect them to several uncomfortable incidents that Dean would rather didn’t complicate their stay here.

Scott sighed. “Fine, look, this… oh, god, STILES.” His eyes went big and puppy-ish as he looked over Dean’s shoulder – they’d found the stretcher and were easing Stiles onto it – and in that moment of distraction, Jackson made a move.

He tried to make a move. Scott spotted the metallic gleam of Dean’s knife just in time for his expression to melt into utter disbelief and shock. Kid was way too earnest for his own good. Then Scott stumbled sideways as Dean bull-rushed his shoulder and met Jackson’s lunge. Jackson missed Scott, and Dean’s knife, all eight serrated inches of it, plunged into him just above the collarbone.

Jackson’s eyes went all big and astonished. He swayed – guided down by his collarbone, the knife was buried in his heart – and stumbled as his body tried to heal around the intrusion. No smoke rose from the wound and Dean grimaced; he’d been hoping the alchemical silver laid into the blade would have some effect, but it looked like these wolves weren’t susceptible. But having a chunk of metal in his heart seemed to be doing plenty, because he weaved like a drunk person before hitting the ground hard on his knees. Making soft, choked noises as his body strained to keep pumping blood, his eyes glazed and then closed as he subsided, twitching, to the ground.

Dean’s eyebrows rose. He walked over, stepped on Jackson’s chest, and removed the knife, glancing over his shoulder to make sure that in the hubbub around Stiles, nobody was paying attention. Grass crackled; Scott was at his shoulder, peering at Jackson with grim-faced fascination.

“Are you really that easy to kill?” Dean asked Scott, who shook his head.

“No. That won’t keep him out for long. Look, I heard them say they’re taking Stiles to the hospital. I have to go with him.”

“To make sure he stays quiet?” Dean asked cynically, and Scott made an exasperated sound.

“Because he’s my best friend!”

“Scott.”

Both of them turned to find Chris Argent staring down at them, and Scott relaxed visibly.

“Mr. Argent, I know I totally can’t ask you for anything,” he began, and Chris’s eyebrows rose. “But can you… hold him? Hold him and not kill him?”

“Scott…” Chris sighed. “We have the facilities, you know that. But I just don’t think this is going to go how you want it to go.” At Scott’s look, Chris added more gently, “Jackson isn’t like you. Just because he’s not a Kanima any longer that doesn’t mean he isn’t a snake.”

“He’s still pack,” Scott insisted. “And you’re right, if I talk to him it won’t do anything. But Derek’s his Alpha, he bit him. He might listen. Please let us try to work this out. Please.”

Chris thought about it, then sighed. “I’ll call Deaton,” he acquiesced, and Scott let out a relieved sigh.

“Thanks. I have to….” He made a hurried gesture and Chris nodded.

“Go with Stiles,” he said, and Scott took off just as a whooping siren announced the arrival of the ambulance. That left Dean and Chris standing over Jackson, who twitched occasionally.

“So, what,” Dean wondered aloud. “Gonna lock him in the basement?”

“Something like that.” Chris leaned down and hefted Jackson up – the boy was tall and hard-muscled, and with all his pads on he was significantly heavy. Dean pitched in, and together they cradle-walked him back around the bleachers where Sam was waiting in the shadows.

“Hey,” he said breathlessly. “I went looking for Hale, but it’s like he vanished into thin air. Is that Jackson?”

“We’re taking him to a holding cell,” Chris explained. “Letting him sleep it off. And I think we’d better find Derek Hale because this sorry sack of shit,” he said, his tone perfectly even despite his words, “is his responsibility.”

“Dude,” Dean protested, “You’re a HUNTER. He’s YOUR responsibility. He just proved he’s a danger to everyone around him; he doesn’t have a handle on it, man, kill him already!”

“He is seventeen,” Chris said sharply, spitting the words into Dean’s face. “How much did you have a handle on when you were seventeen? Teenagers have less-developed brains, poor impulse control, and a genuine neurological inability to consider consequences the way an adult can and that is why we do. Not. Kill. Minors.”

“Dad!” That was Allison, hurrying over. “Dad, the EMT’s are here.”

“Have they said anything?” Chris asked her, and she shook her head.

“Broken ribs, they’re trying to figure out if he punctured a lung. They’re taking him to the hospital. Scott’s going.”

“I know,” he assured her, and put a hand on her shoulder. “I know. Honey, I want you to come with us. We’re taking Jackson someplace safe. And, do you know how to get hold of Derek?”

Her eyes flicked to Jackson, and her face hardened as she nodded. “I have his number from last year.”

“Good.” Chris nodded to Dean and they began to move Jackson toward the parking lot. “Let’s get to the car, then. I’ve got supplies there to keep him still until we can lock him up,” he told Dean as they awkwardly hustled across the grass. Dean tripped over a clod of dirt and barely caught himself and Chris said, “easy, easy…” and then stopped entirely because three figures stood in their paths.

“Oh,” Dean murmured. “That’s… not good.”

Isaac and Boyd, still in pads, and Erica in her vamp jacket and skin-tight jeans, blocked their way. Together the three of them radiated menace in a way they didn’t do individually, and Dean’s stomach lurched at the recognition of how much stronger they were in a pack. The way they stood, three sets of hard eyes watching the Hunters, it was like they were part of one body, one entity. Sam reached into his coat but he didn’t draw, and Dean dearly wished his hands were free because he wanted a gun right that minute.

Then Isaac stepped forward. “You can put him down,” he said casually, and Dean scoffed.

“Like hell we will.”

Isaac smiled softly. “No, you don’t get it. I’ll carry him. I’m stronger.”

“Isaac….” Allison stepped forward. “Are you guys here to help?”

“Look, Jackson’s an ass,” Boyd said, “but he’s pack. If he can’t keep it together he’s gonna pull it down on all of us.”

“And we don’t want that to happen,” Erica sing-songed, nibbling at her full lower lip in a way that was both threatening and fetching. “Seriously, you want to get your hands off him before he wakes up. Unless you’ve been considering moonlighting as a wild child,” she added musically as Boyd and Isaac moved forward.

Dean dropped Jackson’s legs and drew on them. They shot each other looks of pure exasperation, and then Erica rolled her eyes and sauntered forward.

“You use that here, everybody will come running. I don’t think you want the attention,” she told Dean, reaching out lightning fast and grabbing the barrel of his gun. She pressed it hard against her stomach, leaning in to sneer at him. “And your little bullets? Won’t do jack. Besides, we’re here to help you, dumbass.”

“Back. Up. Off. Me,” Dean snarled. “Or I’ll put two right through your twisted little heart.”

She gave him a mock pout. “Oh, it sucks when the cute ones are so stupid—WHAA!” Erica’s feet jerked out from under her suddenly as she hit the ground, Allison’s hand under her jaw carrying her down.

“Will you stop it?” Allison demanded. “Are you guys gonna help us get him to a holding cell or what? We’re not going to kill him. Scott wants us to get Derek.”

“I know,” Isaac assured her, kneeling and holding Erica down before she could rip Allison’s throat out. “He told me. We’re genuinely here to help out, Allison, I promise, we’re not trying to steal him from you.”

Boyd snorted. “Who would want to?”

Allison heaved a sigh. “Okay. Then can we please go before we attract attention?”

Isaac tossed Dean a mischievous smile before gently elbowing him out of the way with a cursory, “Excuse me.” He scooped Jackson into his arms and Chris Argent laid a hand on his shoulder.

“The SUV is this way, I’ve got something to keep him down until we get there,” he repeated for Isaac’s benefit.

Isaac shot him a sidelong glance. “Wolfsbane?”

“Yellow aconite,” Chris agreed. “It’s a milder form. It’ll weaken him, keep him drowsy, but it shouldn’t have any lasting effects. I’ve combined it with a hefty dose of elephant tranquilizers that’ll knock him out maybe for about an hour. The wolfsbane will keep him manageable after he wakes up.”

“That’s pretty sick,” Isaac informed him, and Chris said, “Think about it. This is Jackson we’re talking about. Is he going to listen to Derek, now that he’s got what he wants? Or is he going to challenge him?”

Isaac hesitated for a half-step, mouth slightly open. Then he hurried along behind Chris to the SUV.

Dean and Sam were vastly uncomfortable with three werewolves crowding them, but despite that, they got Jackson bundled into the back of the SUV and chained down with a minimum of fuss. Erica held his shoulder in case he woke up while Chris prepped a syringe and carefully pumped Jackson full of tranqs. The aconite was in plain evidence – black veins crawled from the injection spot, writhing slightly before disappearing as the toxins were spread around his body. Chris did a check on the restraints, then had Allison check them, then offered Sam the chance to check them, which he did, impressed with their thoroughness.

“Erica, Boyd, you’re welcome to ride over with us,” Chris said. “Sam, Dean, you could follow behind with Isaac…?”

“You want us to take him?” Dean demanded, eying Isaac as if he was something that had just crawled into his salad. Isaac tossed his head and looked amused.

“What, are you afraid?” Allison asked pointedly. “He won’t bite. Right, Isaac?”

“You don’t think maybe he’d be a little justified if he did?” Boyd pointed out. “’Cause I seem to remember you shootin’ me full of arrows a little while back. You and me never settled up on that.”

“Yeah,” Chris said slowly, “Scratch that. Boyd, keep an eye on the new guys, please, if you’d be so kind. Isaac, you’re with me.”

“Suppose I could do that.” Boyd shifted his weight, eying Sam in challenge, and Sam just held his hands up.

“Fine. I’ll drive. Dean, you can cover him.” He headed for the Impala with Dean hesitating before storming after him.

“Oh, I’ll cover him,” Dean was muttering. “Fucking werewolves in the Impala, man, are you shitting me? This whole thing just gets worse and worse. Shut up,” he snapped when Boyd, seeing the car, let out a low and appreciative whistle. “She’s a lady!”

Sam just gave Boyd a longsuffering look, and Boyd, after a moment’s thought, let it go. “My bad, man,” he said amiably, and slid in behind Sam’s seat.

“Damn straight,” Dean was still muttering as the engine purred to life, checking his clip compulsively before training the barrel on Boyd, who looked utterly unconcerned. “You leave any claw marks on the leather I swear to god I’ll patch them with your hide.”

“That’s cool,” Boyd said evenly. “Least you’d have a color-match.” He smiled, teeth gleaming in the darkness, when that joke pulled a snicker from Sam.

“Boyd,” Sam began as they pulled out of the lot, following Chris’s car closely. “I… don’t mean to pry.”

“But you’re going to anyway?” Boyd’s tone was dry, but not hostile.

“Well.” Sam looked guilty. “I just… why? Chris said Derek doesn’t turn people without permission, so… why did you agree to it?”

“Look.” Boyd shifted, stretching his legs out as much as he could with Sam’s seat taking up most of the room. “I knew the score. Derek didn’t bullshit me. He told me about the control problems, the Hunters, what could happen if the pack got broken up. He made it clear he was lookin’ for a soldier. I didn’t ever intend to be that, but I didn’t exactly tell him. Guy’s got his own problems, I wasn’t lookin’ to make ‘em mine.”

“And being a werewolf solves your problems?” Dean demanded. Boyd shrugged.

“It’s different. It’s a direction. Wouldn’t expect you to understand. But we got somethin’ now that’s better.”

“The pack,” Sam suggested, and Boyd nodded. “So you did it… what, for friends?”

“You say that like it’s such a stupid little thing,” Boyd observed. “Guess you don’t make a lotta friends, the life you live. I got my own reasons, you probably wouldn’t understand because when you see somebody who’s different your response is to shoot ‘em.”

“No,” Dean snapped. “Different is one thing. Different isn’t a threat. I mean, look at Sam, he’s a complete freak. Half the time I’m scared to share a room with him. ‘Different’ doesn’t mean ‘I’m a monster with fur and fangs who runs around killing people’! Okay, you, ghosts, demons, and all that other bullshit, you don’t belong. You’re the reason decent people can’t sleep in their own beds without worrying something’s gonna come crawling through the window to eat their eyeballs, so don’t you try to pass that off as ‘different’!”

“Yeah?” Boyd folded his arms. “I’m also the reason decent people can’t live in my neighborhood anymore, or shop at the grocery store, or walk alone at night. Even before I was a werewolf, I was threatening ‘decent people’ just by standing around. So from where I’m standing not a whole lot has changed except now, if some gun nut who figures ‘the only good one is a dead one’ sees me walking around with Erica and wants to make something of it, they’re gonna get a little surprise. See, me and her, we don’t have to be afraid anymore. The people we were afraid of? Our things that went bump in the night? They were just humans, man. Just people. You spend your life being afraid of people around you, knowing what they’re really thinking about you, you got no defense? Then you tell us we’re wrong.”

Sam frowned. “Is it better now?” he asked dubiously.

“Some things are better, some things are worse, some things are just different,” Boyd told him readily. “But a lot of things are better. You ask Erica, Isaac, they’re gonna tell you the same thing. Even with all the bullshit, this right here is the best thing that happened to us. I ain’t Derek’s biggest fan, but I owe him for that,” he confessed. “And I don’t regret it.”

Dean’s teeth ground so loudly Sam could hear them over the radio. “Yeah, well,” he muttered as he sank down into his seat. “Give it time.”

X-X-X

Allison must have gotten hold of Derek Hale, because he was standing like a monolith on the Argents’ front porch when their tiny little convoy pulled into the drive. Sam and Dean climbed out as Chris and Derek were unfastening Jackson’s restraints, and then Derek tossed Jackson over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes and let Chris lead him into the house.

“I do NOT like this,” Dean muttered at Sam as they followed, looking over his shoulder as Erica and Boyd fell in behind them, Isaac having tagged along with Derek and Allison. Erica just offered Dean a winsome smile, to which Dean looked deeply uncomfortable.

In contrast to the classy normalcy of the rest of the house, the basement looked like a Hunter’s lair. Cold cement, bare wires, fire doors and padlocks, torture instruments laid out, and a huge iron cage set against the wall. They bundled Jackson up against the cage bars and chained his hands up, hanging him there and Chris set about attaching electrodes to his skin. Derek’s jaw worked and he looked quietly furious, but he stood in a corner and let him do it with Isaac hovering next to him.

“An electrical current,” Chris explained to Sam and Dean, moving aside to show them what he was doing, “has the effect of stealing their strength and ability to heal. If I keep it about here it won’t hurt much but he won’t be able to break free.”

Dean shot Derek, and Erica who was eying the apparatus with clear resentment, a measuring look. “Take it you know a thing or two about that?” he said, and Erica snarled, subsiding when Derek draped his arm around her shoulders protectively.

“My aunt and my grandfather were fond of torture,” Allison said, her voice wintery and hard.

Dean shrugged. “Well, I guess sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.” He flashed them a shit-eating smile, but they both seemed determined to ignore him.

Isaac, on the other hand, said, “I’ve heard that before. You know the part that comes next? ‘It’s for his own good’.”

“Yeah, I think we left ‘for his own good’ territory behind when you turned him into a monster,” Dean shot at Derek. “Just sayin’.”

“Whatever happens to Jackson,” Derek replied coolly, “he got exactly what he asked for.”

“Oh,” Dean snorted. “Oh, okay. That’s just… that’s great.”

“You think he wasn’t like this before I turned him?” Derek wondered, giving Dean an incredulous look. “Jackson’s always been a power-hungry, entitled ass. He hounded me. When I bit him, I expected him to die. I saw signs his body might reject it. He didn’t care about the risks, he just wanted a shot at the power and nothing about it has gone right for him, but that is completely his own fault. Everything he wanted, he got, and you more than anybody should know that idiotic, short-sighted humans should be careful what they wish for,” he snarled, eyes glowing faintly red in the shadows.

“Jackson never had a thought for anybody but himself,” Isaac added.

“That’s not true.” Allison stood by the table, arms wrapped around herself, swaying a little as she watched her father adjust the current. “He wasn’t like that all the time. He felt like he had to act that way but that doesn’t mean it’s who he was. There was a different side of him. I’ve seen it. So has Lydia.”

“Then maybe we should let you talk to him,” Derek suggested dryly, and Allison’s head snapped up.

“Maybe you should,” she shot back. “’Cause you’re doing SO great with this whole ‘Alpha’ thing. Has anything you said ever gotten through to him? Maybe you should leave the talking to people he actually respects.”

“You know, that may not be a bad idea,” Chris said evenly. “If he comes to and finds all of us standing here ready to grill him, I doubt he’ll be very cooperative. I’ve got eyes on this room and monitors upstairs. Maybe we should adjourn and give him a little time to himself. Derek….” He paused at the door. “Let’s get a cup of coffee and talk about some things. I think if we’re going to be in this town, neighbors for lack of a better term, it’s long overdue.”

Derek pursed his mouth, shaking his head slightly. “Mm, I’d rather not.”

“Yeah, well, it wasn’t really a request,” Chris said with mock apology. “I just phrased it that way, y’know, to be polite. Come on, Alpha boy. Upstairs.”

Derek’s eyes flashed, but he stepped away from Erica, giving her shoulder a squeeze and shooting her a look that read, behave yourself. He followed Chris Argent up the stairs, leaving Sam and Dean in the basement with Allison, three conscious werewolves, and one unconscious one. Allison busied herself with her phone, then put it down in frustration.

“Scott’s not picking up.”

“Well.” Isaac looked concerned, took a step toward her, held his hands up when she shot him a death glare. “I mean, give him a bit. He’ll probably call as soon as he knows. It’ll just be some cracked ribs,” he assured her. “Really, I mean, he’ll be really sore and he won’t be able to practice for a few days but he’ll be fine.”

Erica had wandered over to the table, and Sam suddenly noticed she had her hand on the voltage control. “Hey!” he snapped, and she pouted at him. “What are you doing?”

“Well,” Erica said slowly, flicking her tongue over her lower lip and then slowly dialing up the voltage with an expression of almost sexual pleasure, “I’m kind of fond of Stiles.” Jackson twitched, made a low groaning noise, and her smile turned vicious. “Come on, Isaac,” she purred. “You want a turn? Maybe we should soften him up a little before Allison comes in to play Good Cop.”

“You know, I never thought I would say this, but I’m liking that plan,” Dean confessed. He’d wandered over and was staring up at Jackson’s cruciform body.

“Dean,” Sam said reproachfully, and laid his hand over Erica’s. “Let’s not do anything rash, okay?” he reasoned with her. “He’s not even conscious now. Let’s just… head upstairs and wait for news where there’s actually someplace to sit down. Please?”

Erica considered that, then shifted her hand, twining her fingers with his. “Mmm,” she murmured, “Well… because you asked me so nicely.” She backed toward the stairs, reeling him along with her. “You’re the nice one, aren’t you, Sam? The honest one? You remind me of Scott. It’s those big, pretty eyes.”

“I… look, no offense,” Sam said, disengaging his hand carefully from hers, “but werewolf girls… I’ve kind of been there and done that, and it really didn’t end well. I can’t do it again. I’m flattered, though.”

“Aw,” Erica cooed, tilting her head, her eyes speaking calculating curiosity. “Somebody break your heart? You know I’m not interested in that,” she purred as her eyes flicked downward and Sam tried not to squirm.

“More like tried to rip it out,” Dean put in, instantly shattering any seductive vibe Erica had been trying to build. “And then we had to shoot her. Come on, Sammy.” He steered his brother up the stairs. “It’s starting to smell like burnt dog hair down here.”

Erica huffed softly, flicked her hair back, and let Boyd show her up the steps with Isaac close behind. Isaac paused at the top of the stairs and looked back at Allison.

“You coming?”

Allison stroked her fingers over the voltage control, then slowly turned it down. “Don’t wait for me,” she told Isaac, who obligingly shut the door and left her in the basement with Jackson.

While Chris and Derek had a ‘chat’ in the kitchen, Sam and Dean sat in the living room with the three werewolf pups eying them. Dean muttered that it was like The Craft all over again, these formerly outcast teenagers looking sleek and dangerous and slightly power-drunk, authority-hostile, smug. Isaac made a cursory attempt at small talk while Boyd and Erica curled up together next to him, but when Sam kept giving him vague and unsatisfying answers to his questions about their lives as Hunters, he gave it up and fell silent, gazing into the fire with the look of someone who wasn’t completely whole behind the eyes.

Allison emerged after a few minutes and sat on the stairs so she wouldn’t have to speak to any of them. The sound of her ring tone made everyone jump, werewolves included, and they didn’t even pretend not to be eavesdropping when she answered it. The kitchen doors swung open and Derek stepped out, Chris Argent looking over his shoulder, listening in as Allison spoke to whoever was on the other end.

“That was Scott,” she said when she hung up. “Stiles will be okay. A few broken ribs. There was a little internal bleeding, apparently one of them punctured something, so they’re doing surgery, but it shouldn’t be too severe. Mrs. McCall said they’ll probably keep him a couple days and then he’ll be home on bed rest. No Lacrosse for the rest of the year but otherwise….” She shrugged, but she still looked slightly tearful.

Erica stood up. “I want to go to the hospital,” she said. “I’ll sit with Scott until they’re finished.”

“I’m sure that’s fine,” Chris told her gently. “Anybody else?”

“I’ll go,” Isaac volunteered, but Boyd shook his head.

“I’ll stick around, help you out with Jackson,” he said slowly. “Figure there might be some excitement. You could use an extra hand who doesn’t have to worry about getting bit.”

Derek nodded as if this was the right decision on his part and Chris said, “Thank you, Boyd. That’s probably a wise precaution. Sam, Dean, we won’t ask you to stick around for this. You’ve been plenty of help already,” he said in the sort of tone that implied he wished they would stop trying to help.

“What, leave you alone with them?” Dean snorted. “No way. Sorry, you’ll have to put up with us a little longer.”

“Erica.” Derek stopped her on her way out and leaned in close, murmuring something in her ear. She nodded earnestly at him.

“Yeah, of course,” she promised, and he let her go with a nod of thanks. She and Isaac slipped out, and Chris took Allison gently aside.

“You’re sure you don’t want to go with them?”

She shook her head. “You need me here. For Jackson. You know he won’t talk to any of you,” she murmured. “I can do this, Dad, it’ll be fine. It’s just Jackson,” she reasoned, and he nodded.

“Good girl. The job first,” he murmured, and kissed her head, then let her go. “Well, if we’re going to be hanging around here I suppose I might as well make dinner. You take your steak rare?” he asked Boyd a little teasingly, and Boyd cracked a hint of a smile before answering, “No sir. Well-done.”

Chris chuckled. “Well-done it is.”


	6. Chapter 6

Scott held Stiles hand while Sheriff Stilinski was busy yelling into his phone, trying to find someone to blame for the incident on the field.  Jackson had apparently disappeared without a trace and Scott didn’t plan to tell the Sheriff where he was… not until Derek had knocked some sense into him, at any rate.  Stiles hadn’t come back around yet but the surgery had been quick and successful and Scott’s mother was keeping a close eye on Stiles, coming by to bring Scott and the Sheriff coffee, frequent updates, and little bags of pretzels from the snack machine.  Every once in a while Scott jerked out of his thoughts and realized he was gripping Stiles’ hand much too tightly; when they’d stripped Stiles pads off (and destroyed his uniform in the process, something Scott knew Stiles would not be happy about) they’d found his body covered in bruises and lacerations.  They’d tried to go gentle on the details but one of the doctors dumbfoundedly explained that Stiles seemed to have been mauled by a wild animal.  Cleaning and stitching all those injuries had taken much longer than the actual surgery but they were optimistic that he’d make a full recovery even if he would be stuck in the hospital for a few weeks.

 

Scott had eavesdropped on the conversation and wasn’t sure what to make of it.  He’d witnessed the sack and even if Jackson had been trying to kill Stiles for some reason (a thought that made his blood boil and his knuckles turn white) he hadn’t had time to do as much damage as the doctor seemed to imply.  Scott could only see some of it now but it was extensive, the long, bloody lines of claw marks criss-crossed with ugly black stitching making his friend look like a grotesque patchwork doll, something out of Tim Burton’s twisted mind.

 

And there was that smell.  Before practice Stiles had said he’d owe Scott an explanation later and Scott had chosen to accept that, but now that he was sitting in a room with it, letting its insidious charnal odor sink into his skin, he couldn’t ignore it.  The scent made him feel like a hunter, like a monster, made the small hospital room feel maddeningly sterile and confining.  He’d gotten up to pace the hallway a couple of times because he felt like tearing off his clothes and making a dash for the woods.  The feeling was a little thrilling but uncomfortable, like how he felt on the full moon, but where the full moon was a crashing, pounding wave this was a steadily rolling tide.  He didn’t want to leave Stiles too often, though, because he wanted to be there when he woke up.

 

He was lost in thought when Stiles opened his eyes, and only noticed his friend’s return to consciousness when Stiles squeezed his hand.

 

“Hey,” he said, startled, and then scooted his chair in so he could lean close.  “Hey!  Stiles, you’re okay, they took care of you, buddy.”

 

Stiles bruised lips parted, and his eyes flicked around the room, one of them reddened from burst blood vessels.  “I hear my dad,” he rasped, and Scott winced.

 

“Yeah, he’s on the war path.  They’ve got you on a ton of painkillers, are you feeling…?”

 

Stiles gave a soft, coughing laugh.  “Like I got hit by a truck?  Kinda.  But I’m mostly okay.  Please tell me he didn’t arrest Jackson.”

 

Scott shook his head, checked over his shoulder to make sure Sheriff Stilinski was still in the hall, and leaned closer.  “Mr. Argent has him.  Him and two other Hunters… they’re new in town and I don’t think he trusts them but it was the best I could do.  They’re seriously dangerous, Stiles, one of them stabbed Jackson right through the heart with like this ten inch knife,” Scott hissed, holding up his hands to demonstrate the length of the knife.

 

“Ouch,” Stiles commiserated.

 

“Well, it put him down for a minute,” Scott allowed.  “Anyway he’s locked up in the basement I guess.  I talked to Allison a few minutes ago.  They’re not doing anything yet.”

 

“Don’t,” Stiles murmured, squeezing Scott’s hand.  “I’m already going to have to talk my dad out of doing something unnecessary and stupid, don’t make me do it twice, okay?  Jackson’s a dick but he’s not worth it.”

 

“Dude, have you seen you?” Scott asked him soberly.  “I don’t know how he did all of it, but… he almost tore you apart.  I mean, beyond just tackling you.”  Scott held up Stiles stitched-up arm and Stiles shook his head.

 

“This isn’t his handiwork, it happened earlier, and you can’t tell anyone, okay?” he pleaded.  “Seriously, nobody.  This stays between you and me.”

 

“Stiles…”  Scott groped for words.  “What stays between you and me?  Why do you smell like hell?  Why do you look like you pulled Derek’s tail for a joke?”

 

“Hee.”  Stiles snickered.  “Pulled Derek’s tail.”

 

Scott rolled his eyes.  “I’m serious!”

 

“Okay, okay, okay,” Stiles conceded, trying to calm Scott before his raised voice caught Sheriff Stilinski’s attention.  “Look, okay.  I’m… something happened to me, okay?  The night that Gerard died, something… came after me.  And now it’s kind of… living in me,” he said awkwardly, “don’t freak out.”

 

“It’s living in you?” Scott repeated incredulously.  “What, like a parasite?”

 

“Dude,” Stiles huffed.  “I don’t have worms.  It’s not like a centaurian slug, okay?  It’s… it’s a person.  Like a ghost or something, and he’s not hurting me, so can you just chill?”

 

At that point their conversation caught Sheriff Stilinski’s attention.  He burst into the room.  “Son…?”

 

“I’m fine, Dad,” Stiles assured him hastily.  “Really, I’m okay, I’m gonna be fine, I don’t want to press charges, just… just step back from being the sheriff for a minute.”

 

The Sheriff looked flatly unamused.  “Well.  We’ll talk about that later,” he said ominously.  “You know, you’re going to be laid up for a few weeks.  An injury like this one takes time to heal.  You’re going to miss school, and frankly, you’re not going to be fit to play lacrosse again this year.”

 

“DAD.”  Stiles held up a hand.  “I know, okay?  Believe me, I know how much pain I’m in.  So I’m benched this season… I get it.  I promise, no more Lacrosse for now.”  He offered his father a placating smile.  “And Scott will bring me my homework, it’ll be fine.  I won’t get behind.”

 

Sheriff Stilinski eyed him, and Scott understood why – Stiles loved lacrosse, at least enough to keep coming back to sit on the bench season after season.  And recently he’d finally gotten to play and had scored and made a good showing… things could have started going well for him if not for this injury.  But then again, Scott figured a few punctured organs could make anyone rethink their priorities.

 

“Well,” he said slowly.  “I’m glad to see you’re not too upset.”

 

“Oh, no, I’m upset,” Stiles confessed.  “I just… it’s hard to explain, Dad.  Please, just believe that I’m gonna be okay.  There’s always next year,” he added hopefully, and the Sheriff rolled his eyes.

 

“Well, we’ll talk about that too.  In the meantime….”  He glanced at the hallway.

 

Stiles made a shooing motion.  “Go back to work, Dad.  I’ll be fine, I’ll hang out and eat ice cream.  Mrs. McCall’s here,” he pointed out.  “She’ll keep an eye on me, it’s fine.  You’ve got big, important sheriff stuff to do.”

 

His father looked surprised and even a little wounded.  “You don’t want me to stick around?”

 

“Pffft.”  Stiles waved him off.  “For a little scratch like this?  Besides, what if Lydia swings by, y’know, to check on me,” he wheedled.  “You can’t be hanging around like a chaperone.  I’ve got to play this sympathy thing for all I’m worth!”

 

The Sheriff gave a soft, snorting laugh, rubbed his hand over his face, and let out a sigh of resignation.  “Well, it’s good to know you’re not taking it too hard,” he conceded.  “Call me if you need anything?”

 

“I’m pretty sure Scott’s mom has your number memorized by now,” Stiles pointed out dryly, and Sheriff Stilinski sighed again as he stepped out into the hall to talk to Mrs. McCall.

 

Scott raised a dubious eyebrow.  “So there’s another person hanging around in your body?”

 

“It’s about as weird as it sounds,” Stiles agreed.  “But he’s not hurting anybody just by hanging around.  It’s less like a parasite thing and more like a symbiote thing, you know?”

 

Scott blinked.  “What, like Venom?”

 

“No,” Stiles scolded him, “not like Venom, dude, think, like… think Dax.”

 

Scott eyed him for a second, then conceded, “Terry Farrell is hot.”

 

“She is SO hot,” Stiles agreed with enthusiasm.  “And I know what I smell like, but I promise, it’s not what it seems.  Like, apparently when you screw around with dimensions and stuff it’s like rocket afterburn?  But you’ve just gotta roll with it, buddy, because I don’t know how long this is gonna last.  ‘Cause it’s not just about separating us,” he said earnestly, “it’s about getting my new headmate somewhere safe instead of just stranding him in the aether.  I can’t just kick him out,” he explained.  “That’d kind of be like… like tearing him in half.  I have to get him all the way back across somehow.  So it’s cool, I’m working on it,” he promised, raising his stitched arm.  “This’ll give me some time for research I guess.”

 

“I guess,” Scott agreed.  “So what were you doing with Derek?  Did he have anything to say about the… the smell?”

 

Stiles grimaced and looked vaguely guilty.  “Well, you know, Derek’s… a creature of the night, which, I mean, you are too, but he’s been one his whole life so I kind of figured I’d pick his brain before I went to the Argents.  I was going to talk to Allison,” he said, “but then… stuff happened.”  He shrugged.  “And now I’m in the hospital, which is just… great.”  He popped his lips a little and squirmed, wincing as he adjusted his position against the pillows.  Scott immediately reached out to help him and Stiles offered him a weary smile.  “Thanks.  You know, you don’t have to stay.  Somebody should go make sure Jackson isn’t toast.”

 

“I know.  I…”  Scott’s ears pricked, and he said, “Isaac and Erica are here.  Derek probably sent them.  Are you sure you’re okay if I go?”

 

“Pretty sure they’ve got me on the good stuff,” Stiles murmured with a lazy smile.  “I’ll be okay, I’ll just, y’know, hang out.  Watch some TV.  Chat up the cute nurses.  It’s more important that you don’t let Jackson say anything stupid to the werewolf hunter, ‘cause that’s totally something Jackson would do.”

 

Scott snorted.  “Yeah.  No kidding.  Look, I’ll be back tomorrow,” he promised.  “Don’t do anything dumb, okay?”

 

“… Who, me?  Psshh.”  Stiles tried to look innocent and wound up just looking awkward.  “That is so totally unlike me.”

 

“Yeah.”  Scott patted his shoulder.  “Right.”  He got up to leave but paused at the door, giving Stiles a soft look.  “You know,  whether you’re alone up there or not, I’m glad you’re okay.”

 

“This is okay?”  Stiles smiled at him.  “Don’t worry.  I’m just going to lie here and convalesce.  And now I’ve got a pair of gophers!” he announced cheerfully when Isaac and Erica appeared in the doorway.  “Behold, my loyal subjects!”

 

“You’re such a dork,” Erica mused, slipping past Scott and coming over to assess him, arms folded, weight on one hip.  “Wow.  Jackson worked you over.  Maybe we should have strapped him down a little better.”

 

Scott slipped past Isaac, sharing a few soft words with him, and Stiles grinned at Erica.  “Don’t blame Jackson, seriously,” he told her.  “I’m okay.  A few days of rest and fluids and all that junk and I’ll be good as new.”

 

Erica came closer, then paused and recoiled.  “Ew!  What is that?”

 

Stiles sighed.  “It’s nothing.  Derek already knows, Scott already knows, we’re working on it.  Can you just ignore it?” he pleaded, but she looked uncomfortable.

 

“I don’t know, it makes me feel weird.”

 

“Weird like wolfish?”  Stiles offered her a sympathetic smile.  “I know, I’ve heard that.  You guys can sit in the hall, I won’t mind.  I could use some more sleep,” he pointed out, and Erica, chewing on her lower lip, acquiesced.

 

“Fine.  But Derek told me to give you a message,” she said as she backed toward the door.  “He said he’d be by later and you and he needed to talk.  What’s that about?” she asked coyly, and Stiles gave her a lopsided smile.

 

“Oh, y’know, just the wild and crazy sex we’re having,” he quipped, and Erica rolled her eyes.

 

“Be that way,” she muttered.  “Yell if you need anything.  DON’T abuse the privilege,” she warned him, eyes flashing dangerously, and Stiles held up his hands.

 

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

 

X-X-X

 

Scott showed up at the Argent house just as the group of them were sitting down to dinner.

 

Boyd opened the door and muttered, “Good, somebody with some sense,” as he let Scott into the house.  The scent of cooking meat was strong throughout the house and Scott took a deep breath, following it to the kitchen where Chris Argent was just finishing a few quick pan-seared steaks.

 

“One of those for me?” he asked with cautious cheerfulness, and Chris, though he looked tired, at least seemed happy to see him.

 

“Scott,” he greeted warmly, “I’m glad you came over.  Get a plate, we’re headed to the monitor room.”

 

“Jackson’s in the basement,” Boyd added, stepping in from the other room.  “Allison is with him.”

 

“Good,” Scott said, trying to get rid of the lingering sense of baleful eyes on him, rolling his shoulders.  “Are… the other guys…?”

 

“The hunters are in the living room,” Boyd said dryly.  “I think we make them nervous.”

 

“Well that’s fair ‘cause they make me really freaking nervous,” Scott muttered.

 

“Jackson should be awake any minute,” Chris said as he slid a piece of meat onto Scott’s plate.  “Shall we go watch some television?”

 

“Why, what are you doing?” Scott asked, mildly bewildered but following him like a lost duckling as he led them all into a small alcove off the dining room where a set of monitors had been placed on a card table, wires trailing across the floor making footing hazardous.  A couple of folding chairs had been placed carefully among the wires and Chris claimed the first one, settling in and tabbing through the camera views on the basement until he found the best one.  It showed Jackson hanging from his chains and Allison wandering around the small room like a small, slender ghost.  Plate in his lap, Scott slid into the other chair.  Half a second later, Dean appeared to block the door.

 

“S’the show on already?” Dean asked with false joviality as he crammed himself into the small space and leaned against the wall, arms folded.

 

“You could sit this one out,” Scott suggested, but Dean just gave a knife’s-edge grin.

 

“Oh, no.  I wouldn’t miss this for the world.”  Fortunately his brother didn’t try to join them – Scott wasn’t sure anyone as big as Sam would fit in the cramped space especially with three of them already in there – but Dean’s presence induced enough tension on its own.

 

“He should be coming around any minute now,” Chris commented, “but he’ll be fuzzy and weak.  He may not be in any state to talk.”

 

“Well, that’s fine,” Dean murmured, his gravelly voice grating in Scott’s ears.  “I’ve got all night.”

 

Scott shot him a glare, then settled in patiently.  Glancing over, he noticed that Chris was watching him with a grave, almost significant expression, like he was trying to communicate something to Scott without words.  Scott’s eyebrows drew together and he gave a slight nod even though he wasn’t sure he understood.  It seemed to satisfy Chris, who turned back to the screen and began adjusting the volume controls.  Before long they could hear Allison’s footsteps as she roamed the small room.

 

Chris pointed at a different screen which was focused on the table of instruments.  “She turned the voltage down.”

 

“Well, that’s not smart,” Dean offered, and Scott eyed him.

 

“Jackson won’t hurt her,” he said testily, and Dean raised an eyebrow.

 

“Really.  That what you thought about your other friend?”

 

Scott bristled.  “No, actually.  Jackson hates Stiles.  Allison, he likes.”

 

Dean gave a soft chuckle.  “And you don’t see the problem with breaking the ribs of people you don’t like just because you can?”

 

Before Scott could answer, Chris said softly, “He does.  Scott and Jackson are different people, Dean.  Emphasis on ‘people’.”

 

Dean made a scornful noise.  Scott was busy trying to figure out when he and Chris had become allies instead of just warily respectful neighbors.

 

For a while the only sound in the tiny monitor room was Scott eating, and he self-consciously tried to do that as quietly as possible.  He almost hoped Dean would get bored and wander off, but the hunter was as immovable as stone – he didn’t shift or fidget and at times barely seemed to breathe.  Scott was crunching on the last piece of broccoli when a sudden, angry clatter of metal on metal surprised him so badly he almost choked, coughing and pounding his chest to get everything down the right tube.

 

Jackson had woken up and was testing his restraints.  Swallowing nervously, Scott leaned in and watched Allison approach him.  “Are you sure she’s…?”

 

“She’s fine,” Chris assured him before he could finish.  “She knows what she’s doing.  I’ve been training her.”

 

“Yeah, but…”

 

“Scott.”  Chris’s tone was firm, but also comforting… as if he understood why Scott was anxious.  “It’ll be fine.  We’re right here watching her.”

 

“Right,” Scott sighed, sinking back into his seat.  “We’re right here.”

 

“You two want to shut up with the future-son-in-law bonding crap?” Dean muttered.  “He’s talking.”

 

And indeed, Jackson was.

 

X-X-X

 

“You know,” Jackson said sourly, hanging out of his chains and giving a disdainful laugh, “All of you psycho kidnappers keep forgetting that my _father_ is a goddamn _lawyer_!”  He roared the last few words the way only a werewolf could, yanking at his bonds, but Allison was unmoved.

 

“Is that really how you’re coping with this?” she wondered, wandering aimlessly over to the table with the controls, noticing when Jackson’s eyes flew gratifyingly wide in recognition.  “By insisting everybody else is crazy?  Do you really believe that’s why we keep having to snatch you away from all the people you’ve hurt? The people you’ve murdered?  Because _we’re_ crazy?  You know, that’s the problem with you, Jackson.”  Allison’s voice went hard.  “You never accept that the consequences for your actions are your fault.  You blame everybody else.  You can’t accept that _you_ screwed up.”  She played her fingers over the dial but didn’t actually turn it up, letting bitterness seep into her tone.  “Well, you really screwed up this time.”

 

Jackson sneered.  “If you’re trying to make me feel bad about sacking Stilinski….”

 

“You broke his ribs and punctured his internal organs,” Allison snapped.  “He’s in the HOSPITAL right now.  He won’t be able to play Lacrosse for the rest of the year!  His father, the _sheriff_ , wanted to press charges,” Allison reminded him.  “You went too far, Jackson.  YOU.  This is nobody else’s fault but yours and if you had any balls,” she sneered back, “you’d act like a grown man and take responsibility for your mistakes instead of hiding behind your _daddy_.”  She softened and stepped in closer, dark eyes fixed earnestly on Jackson’s face.  “What happened to you?” she whispered, reaching up to touch his face.  “Don’t tell me this is because of the Bite.  It may turn you into a werewolf but it doesn’t turn you into this.”

 

For a moment, Jackson’s sneer faltered, and he bared his teeth at her.  “Look, my affairs are my business,” he growled.  “Just stay out of my way, Allison.”

 

“Why?  Are you going to hurt me?”  Allison sighed.  “We were friends.”

 

“We weren’t friends!” he spat.  “I was only nice to you to get at McCall!”  He gave a ragged laugh.  “You were stupid enough to buy it?  That’s your problem.”

 

She tilted her head and took a step back, appraising him quietly.  “No… this isn’t about my problems,” she said finally.  “What are you hiding?  Why are you trying to push me away?”

 

“What, hanging from electrified handcuffs isn’t enough of an excuse to be a little pissed off?” he snarled, but Allison shook her head.

 

“Jackson, it’s just you and me down here.  You don’t have to lie to me,” she said gently, firmly.  “And if you have anything to say in your own defense maybe you’d better say it now before my dad and those other Hunters come back because I guarantee you, they’re not going to give you any more chances.”

 

“Yeah, that’s a great idea,” Jackson snorted.  “Add murder to your list of prosecutable offenses.”

 

“… Do you think they haven’t done it before?”

 

The sobriety in Allison’s tone seemed to hit Jackson even though he didn’t want it to.  He twisted his wrists in the shackles and pulled at the chains, but he couldn’t break free and the current made his muscles spasm in the attempt.  “They can’t do it,” he said finally, “they can’t kill me.”

 

“My family’s been killing werewolves for centuries,” Allison told him softly.  “We know what we’re doing.  We can poison you.  Shoot you with wolfsbane bullets.  Cut you in half at the waist and burn your body.  We know how to keep you from coming back.  Just because you defied death twice doesn’t mean you’ve got infinite chances,” she reasoned.  “Jackson, sooner or later that penny has to drop.”

 

For a moment Jackson just hung there with his mouth a thin, white line.  Then he said, “three times.”

 

Allison almost asked him what he meant, but then she realized and bit her lower lip, giving a reluctant nod.  “Three times.  How many free chances do you think anybody gets in this world?  And I don’t think you want to die, do you?”

 

Jackson stubbornly stayed quiet, and Allison just nodded, turning and beginning a slow meander back toward the table.  “It didn’t help, did it?  The Bite.  You’re still just… a popular outcast.  You figured you’d be an Alpha but instead you’re an omega.  The one nobody wants.”

 

“Shut your mouth,” Jackson bit off, but Allison ignored him.

 

“The thing is, you could have everything you wanted.  All you’d have to do is loosen up and, I don’t know, STOP being a jerk.  I know you’re capable of it, so why don’t you?”  She contemplated it as she picked up a sleek, heavy handgun from the table and checked the clip and the chamber.  Jackson’s eyes widened as he watched her. 

 

“Why should I?” he protested, though he was beginning to struggle a little harder in his restraints.  “I’ve got the power now.  I’ve got the strength, the speed, the senses… I can do anything I want!”

 

“You’re right, you could,” she agreed mildly.  “So why are you alienating everyone?  You’re forcing everybody else to turn on you.  What are you trying to justify to yourself?  Or were you hoping it would kill you?” she wondered distantly as she flicked the safety off.  “When Derek bit you?  Did you just want it to be over?  Are you sabotaging yourself because you want an end?”

 

Jackson gave a derisive, but unsteady laugh.  “Why would I want to end it now?  I’ve got everything I wanted.”

 

“Hm.  I don’t think so.”  Allison walked toward him slowly, swinging her feet before placing them, the gun half-tucked behind her hip.  “You’ll never have what you really want, will you?  Your parents back, your real family, their love and their pride... it’s impossible.  But sometimes I think that without those things you’ll never really be whole.  So maybe it’s better this way.  Maybe I should just….”  She carefully pressed the gun against his forehead, between Jackson’s eyes.

 

Jackson laughed shakily.  “What, a gun?  Is that supposed to scare me?”

 

“The bullets are wolfsbane.  They _will_ kill you,” she explained soberly.  “But I’ll only do it if you want me to.  Better me than them,” she said, nodding toward the door.  “They’ll make you suffer first.  I’m your friend, Jackson.  I’ll make it quick.  So tell me… do you want to live or do you want to die?”

 

“This is a sick joke, get that thing away from me…”

 

“Do you want to follow the rules and have friends and a pack and people who care about you, or do you want to self-destruct?” Allison pressed.  “It’s not a hard question.  Yes or no?  Live or die?  If you’re really not sure you can take it anymore,” she reasoned, voice cracking a little, forcing a wan smile even as she took up the slack in the trigger, “maybe it’s better this way.  You could be with your parents again,” she whispered.  “But if you rest, you don’t get any more chances.  Three….”

 

Jackson snarled and yanked at his chains.  “You’re not funny, Allison!”

 

“Two,” she counted, and the hammer cocked back.  Jackson flailed, writhing against the mesh.

 

“You’re a freak, Argent!” he snarled.  “You really want to be a murderous freak?”

 

“Down to one, live or die?” she asked, and her knuckle turned white.

 

“LIVE!”  He howled the word as if it was ripped from the bottom of his lungs, and the gun went off with a sound like thunder, earning a flinch from Jackson until a moment passed and he realized there was a neat little hole in the metal mesh next to his head.  He looked at it with wide eyes, then back at her.

 

“If you want to live, you have to change your behavior,” she told him firmly.  “You can’t act like this anymore, do you understand?  It’s not about you.  It’s about all of us.”

 

Jackson was panting.  “So, what, I have to follow Derek around now?  Be Hale’s little bitch?”

 

“You don’t have to follow anyone, but you do need to _listen_ and cooperate and let us into your life.  The only way we all get through this is to work together… and Jackson, you need to start proving you’re not the weakest link here.  Because right now, everybody thinks they can just throw you away,” she pointed out ruthlessly.  “You’re dangerous, you’re not a team player, you act like an ass to everybody.  They’ll cut you loose in a heartbeat but I know you’re better than that.  I know you could be amazing,” she whispered, pressing her hand against his cheek, “if you’d just give yourself the chance.  Will do that?”

 

His avoidant nod wasn’t answer enough, and she forced him to look at her.  “Will you promise?  Because I don’t ever want to have to be in this position with you again.”  She pointed the still-heated gun muzzle toward the ceiling and pressed close, nudging her head against his, letting him get her scent.  “Please don’t make me be the one to kill you.”

 

“Okay,” he rasped, letting out a shuddering breath.  “Okay.  I promise.”

 

“Promise?”  She sniffled, and he nodded against her.

 

“I swear.”

 

She smiled like the sun breaking through the clouds and slipped one arm around him, squeezing him.  “Okay.”  She felt his chest shudder, heard the thick sound that caught in his throat, but then he swallowed it back and his voice was dry and pointed.

 

“You going to let me down now?”

 

X-X-X

 

Upstairs in the monitoring room, Dean let out a low whistle.  “That’s a hell of a girl,” he murmured, and Scott had to smile.

 

“Yeah,” he said sappily.  “She really is.”

 

“So what, you’re gonna trust him?”  This was directed at Chris, who was rubbing his mouth and staring at the monitor with narrowed eyes.

 

“We’re going to set some conditions,” he said, and rose from his seat.  “Scott, come with me.  You too,” he told Dean, “but don’t interfere.”

 

“Aw, I wouldn’t dream of it,” Dean muttered as they managed to squirm and shuffle out of the room, then clattered toward the basement stairs.  When they got to the bottom Allison was unloading the gun onto the table, and she quickly moved to stand between them and Jackson.

 

“Dad,” she said warningly, and Chris held up his hands to placate her. 

 

“I’m not going to shoot him,” he promised, and fixed his gaze on Jackson.  “Son, you’re aware you’re in some trouble?”

 

Jackson gulped.  “… Yes sir.”

 

Chris shifted his weight and folded his arms.  “I believe you and I have had this talk before, about you hurting people, and about what happens to you when you turn eighteen?  Now you’ve put Stiles in the hospital.  How do you want me to take that?”

 

“It… it was an accident,” Jackson murmured, squirming nervously.  “I didn’t mean to do it.”

 

“Really.”  Chris raised an eyebrow, and Jackson shot him a glare.

 

“Yeah, really.  It was the way he smelled,” he said with obvious reluctance.  “There was something about it, I just… I just lost it.  But I didn’t mean to put him in the hospital,” he grumbled, then frowned, because Scott was standing behind Dean making frantic gestures at him to _stop talking right now!_  

 

“The way he smelled?” Chris repeated, and Dean shifted, eyes narrowing.

 

“What exactly did he smell like?” he asked gruffly.

 

Scott put his hands together and silently pleaded with Jackson, motioning toward Dean and making cutting motions across his throat.  Jackson squinted at him in confusion which caused Dean and Chris to both turn around and eye him… Scott stopped instantly and slipped his hands behind his back, trying very hard to look innocent and failing spectacularly.

 

“U-um,” Jackson hesitated.  “I don’t know.  Hopeless loser, I guess.”

 

“Hm.”  Chris Argent was unamused.

 

“Yeah,” Jackson reasoned, nodding, firming his jaw.  “Yeah, you know Stilinski.  I just didn’t realize until I was a werewolf how badly he stinks of failure.  Suddenly I just had to, y’know, knock him on his ass.  It was like a totally… powerful….”  He was staring at Scott who was trying to silently coax him through his explanation.  “Wolf… instinct… thing.  I wasn’t… I wasn’t prepared for it.  But I will prepare for it,” he added quickly at Chris’s baleful look.  “I’ll…”  he glanced at Scott, who gestured frantically, then stopped when Chris turned.  “With McCall!” Jackson burst out to get his attention back.  “I’ll work on it with McCall.  I will get a handle on it,” he assured Chris earnestly.  “That... right now.  It’s my number one priority.  Right McCall?” he asked a little desperately, and Scott leaped to his defense.

 

“Yes,” he blurted out.  “Right.  We… we will totally work on that together.  It will never, ever happen again because I am going to teach Jackson how to control himself, and Jackson is going to learn from me!”  He shot Jackson a look that read _please play along_ and then flashed Chris Argent a hopeful smile.

 

“Oh, you have got to be k—“  Dean began, but shut up when Chris held up a quelling hand.

 

“Scott,” Chris said gently.  “Am I understanding you correctly?  Are you telling me you’re going to take full responsibility for Jackson?”

 

“I…?”  Scott’s voice cracked and he glanced at Jackson, then at Chris, then at Allison as if for help but she gave him a helplessly exasperated shrug.  “For Jackson?”  He looked at Jackson again… Jackson who was hanging, vulnerable, alone, Jackson who was giving him a look that was half pleading and half demand to _get me out of this, goddammit_ , and he set his jaw.  “Yes.  I’m taking responsibility for him.”

 

Allison’s eyes closed… whether in resignation or relief he couldn’t tell.  Chris just stared at Scott for a long, long moment, taking his measure, then finally said, “Allison.  Let him down.”

 

Dean’s eyes rolled so hard he pitched backward as Allison scrambled for the voltage control and shut it off, then went to unlock Jackson’s restraints.  He collapsed in her arms and almost took her down to the floor but then Scott was there supporting them both and helping Jackson find his feet.

 

“I hope you know what this means,” Chris said, his voice echoing off the cement walls with ominous force.  “Both of you.  Your life is in Scott’s hands, Jackson.  You screw up again, we won’t just come for your head… we’ll come for his.  You’ve got enough blood on your hands already, don’t you think?  After all,” he added as Scott and Allison helped Jackson stand up, “Just because Matt and Gerard paid for those deaths it doesn’t mean you’ve been absolved.  Remember that.”

 

Jackson looked stricken, but he didn’t have much time to think about it.  Scott was hauling him toward the stairs and he was clumsily staggering along, wishing Scott would stop muttering pointless things like, “It’s okay, easy, I got you,” because he wasn’t an invalid, dammit.  They hit the top of the stairs and spilled through the door and Boyd was there for some reason and Scott passed Jackson over to him saying, “Take him someplace safe, I’ll be right there.  Jackson, stay with him.  Don’t leave until I get there, okay, remember the Sheriff is looking for you.”  Boyd took Jackson’s weight easily and got him out of the house, which turned out to be a good thing because just as they were hobbling down the stairs Jackson lurched, sprawled, and threw up into the flower bed.

 

“Damn,” Boyd remarked.  “You’re lucky that wasn’t my shoes.”

 

Coughing, Jackson threw him a glare.  “What were those, five bucks at Goodwill?” he rasped.  Boyd rolled his eyes and pulled him to his feet.

 

Inside the house, Dean had Chris Argent up against a wall, hands knotted in his shirt.

 

“Do you want to explain to me why,” he snarled, “you just let that punk-ass kid walk out of here free and clear when he could have killed someone tonight?”

 

“If he had killed someone I’d have put a bullet in his brain,” Chris said calmly, despite his position.

 

“IT.  DOESN’T.  MATTER,” Dean growled.  “That kid is a danger to himself and everyone around him.  He should have been taken out months ago, when he started killing people!  And now he says he’s reformed so you’re just going to take his word on it and let him leave?”

 

Chris glanced heavenward.  “Has it occurred to you,” he said patiently, “that I know something you don’t?  What just happened here tonight was completely different and far more significant than Jackson’s stupidity.”

 

“Well, you better clue me in ‘cause right now it looks to me like you’re a traitor,” Dean said through his teeth.  “And you know what we do when a good hunter goes bad.  You _know_ it.”

 

“Just…”  Chris laid his hands over Dean and gently coaxed them to relax their grip on his shirt.  “Dean.  Listen.  The position of Alpha?  It can be an inherited title, but it doesn’t have to be.”

 

“Inherited?”  Dean looked flummoxed.  “What are you trying to say?”

 

Chris smiled tiredly.  “I’m saying it can be earned.  The actions of an individual werewolf, the way he interacts with his own kind and relates to them… taking other Betas under his wing, for instance… it can trigger a change to Alpha status.”

 

Comprehension dawned and Dean stepped away, rubbing a hand over his mouth, trying to consider the implications.  “So,” he said gruffly.  “So… so you think the McCall kid is moving up.  And what, you’re encouraging this?!”

 

“Derek turned Erica, Boyd, and Isaac,” Chris told him patiently.  “You haven’t been here so you haven’t had the opportunity to observe the shifts in loyalties that have been going on between all these wolves.  Derek may be their progenitor but Scott is their Alpha.  He just doesn’t have the badge yet… but I have reason to believe that he will, especially if things keep going the way they’re going.”

 

Dean frowned.  “And then what, you take out Derek too?”

 

That earned a shrug from Chris.  “If he’s still behaving, maybe not.  It remains to be seen, when Scott is elevated, whether he’ll fall into line.  Having two Alphas isn’t unheard-of for a pack,” Chris pointed out.  “Usually it’s a breeding pair but that’s not a requirement.  If Derek would get the stick out of his ass they’d probably work well together.”

 

Dean digested that for a long moment.  “You know, if you’d just kill them, you could avoid all the politics.”

 

“I’m not interested in the easy way out,” Chris replied, heading for the stairs.  “I’m interested in the healthiest outcome... for _everyone_.” 

 

He left Dean to think that over.


End file.
